The Unexpected Effects of Reverse Psychology
by henriettaline
Summary: Finn and Rachel realize their parents are manipulating them and plan to get them to stop, but it doesn't take long for them to decide they're onto something good. Scenes written in and around both "Heart" and "On My Way".
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Started as a take on the missing Finchel make-up scene in "Heart", and grew from there.**

**Disclaimer: of course I own nothing (except some opinions that I have transferred to the characters).**

**Now rated T.  
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><p>"I can guarantee one thing you won't have to worry about adding to your nighttime crazytown ritual, that's getting into bed with me." Finn stormed off, headed for the downstairs washroom.<p>

He sat on the toilet for a while, the pressure in his gut easing as his intestines unclenched. He took a look at the magazine he'd grabbed from Rachel's room and tossed it onto the floor – some beauty magazine, not interested, and his mind was still reeling from his fight with Rachel. He couldn't believe she was that down on him, not thinking that he had a future of his own or something he was going to do in New York rather than just be her accessory. He thought she'd always believed in him more than that. She was the one who'd always told him he was better than the rest, special even, and that she supported his dreams.

His gut finally let loose, which was a relief. He sniffed the air. Okay, probably just as well he wasn't doing this right next to her, he thought. He'd've been worried it would turn her off, even with sex already off the table for tonight since her dads were around. Still, that's part of living together, right, dealing with messy stuff like that?

Were they just too different? Rachel was used to doing everything her way, and she was so particular about things. But she didn't fuss over how he dressed and acted, or how messy they got when they made love – he'd never felt that her pickiness extended to him. He thought back to the first weeks of sharing a bathroom with Kurt. Yeah, it took time to adjust. He'd adjusted to Kurt, and he'd thought Rachel couldn't be worse, but Kurt had also adjusted to him, at least until they'd moved into the larger house and didn't have to share any more. And it's different when it's the one you love – Rachel had said something about 'the mystery' in part of their fight, and certainly that wasn't something that would apply to his relationship with his stepbrother, which was more on a need-to-know basis.

His stepbrother who was probably the most negative about their marriage plans and who had talked to him about his future and concerns that he was giving his life up for Rachel. His stepbrother who had heard about their engagement in confidence and then decided that it was somehow the same as getting married right away and that everyone should stop them. What had Rachel really said anyway, just stumbled a bit about what he might be doing in New York. Hell, he didn't know that himself. So why had he assumed she meant it so badly when she'd always supported him before? Because he was already worried about it himself, probably, so he'd heard what he'd feared rather than what she'd said.

The whole evening had been a big in-your-face to him about how different Rachel's life was to his. Sure they had had fun at dinner, and in a nice goofy way that he could go for. He'd even been wondering if Kurt might be interested in trying that kind of singalong thing at home, with Rachel and Blaine over. But it didn't feel comfortable, and he hadn't been able to relax at all. And then he hadn't been able to relax in Rachel's room, there just didn't seem to be space for him there, and her evening whatever ritual was crazy-long. Guess she'd never had to share a bathroom. Plus his gut had been aching.

Finn finished on the toilet and washed up. He picked the magazine up slowly. One big problem with storming off is having to figure out how to go back, he thought. He loved Rachel so much that the idea of being without her felt like it would rip him apart, and he'd still walked away over a petty squabble. Real mature. Especially when he'd been the one to push her into getting so serious, getting engaged, even pulling out all the stops at convincing her that they belonged together by singing, since he knew that was how they connected best. But now they were engaged, so walking away was temporary, it had to be. Marriage would do that too, they'd have to deal with things then. And maybe she'd still look adoringly into his eyes even after she heard and smelled the worst of his bodily functions.

He went back to the door of Rachel's room and looked in. She was sitting slumped on the bed, probably crying.

"Hey," he said quietly.

She jumped up and ran to him. "I'm so sorry, Finn," she pleaded. "I didn't mean it like that, you have to know that right?" she stood in front of him, looking into his face with the wide eyes that he found so hard to refuse. "I just haven't really visualized the details of it yet, us living together in New York. Of course you'd be doing something with your life, you know I believe in you."

He opened his arms to her and she jumped into them. "I love you so much," she said. "Here in my room – it's too easy for me just to do things my way. I'm sorry that I didn't think of you and how you'd feel, you must hate me."

"I love you," Finn replied, looking down into her face. "And I shouldn't have said what I did, I was mad and I'm sorry. But yeah, it just doesn't feel like there's space for me here, I don't belong." He took a deep breath and exhaled. "It's like when Mom and I first moved in with Burt and Kurt, it just wasn't my home and I felt like I was just being shoved into a place that was already someone else's. I didn't really feel at home until we changed things around so it was different for everybody."

"I remember."

Finn breathed again. "If we're going to make this work, we need a place that's ours," he said. "Not your place with me in it, not my place with you in it. Ours. And we'll have to work out some sort of arrangements, because having opposite schedules with you sounds like my least favorite thing. Do you think you could try to do that?"

"I could for you."

He kissed her, slowly caressing her mouth with his tongue, feeling her body relax against his. "We'll work something out," he mumbled against her lips. "We always do."

"Please come to bed," she said, leading him into the room. "I always feel so much better when I'm in your arms."

"Okay," Finn smiled. He cleared his throat. "Something's strange, though."

"What is it?" She got into bed and he snuggled in behind her, spooning her body with his.

"Well when I snuck downstairs, I saw your Dads, in the living room, and they looked kind of... smug."

"Maybe they didn't hear us."

"We were loud, Rach." Finn stroked her hair, enjoying the feel and smell of it. Okay, her evening ritual had some benefits. Maybe they could moderate things more, like they usually did; Rachel tended to start out crazy with things but would listen to him.

"Oh. Yes, we were." She looked over her shoulder at him. "They planned this," she said, hurt evident in her voice. "All of them."

Finn frowned. But she was right – they'd clearly been bullied into him sleeping over without them being prepared for it, and all four of their parents had been in on it and deliberately tried to make them as uncomfortable as possible. While they were learning from the experience, the fight had still hurt them both, and it could have been a complete disaster for them. He exhaled. "Yeah. So much for people being supportive, if they're actually trying to get us to fight." He tightened his arm around her. "Even my mom," he said sadly.

"I'm not so sure she's fully on board with sabotaging us."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, she did pack your clothes for the night, and you always look great in black." Rachel smiled. "You even looked hot when you were mad."

"Oh yeah?" Finn gave her a light kiss.

"Mmm-hmm." Rachel settled back into his arms. "Not that I wouldn't rather avoid you being mad. I'm so glad we kissed and made up."

Finn agreed, but he hoped they wouldn't go through it all again in the morning when they woke up and had to share the bathroom again. Not that they hadn't woken up together before, they'd done quite a bit of sneaking around when her dads were away, but obviously her dads were intent on ratcheting up the pressure. And most of those other times they'd been making love, which made him a lot more accommodating and Rachel a lot more mellow. But at least now he and Rachel knew what their parents were up to, and hopefully that would help them deal with it.

Then Finn noticed the time – even with dinner, Rachel's bedtime routine, and their fight, it was still really early. The other times when they'd gone to bed this early it had still been a long time before they went to sleep, but that wasn't an option with her dads in the house. Though it would serve her dads right to overhear _that_ after the fight that they'd manipulated. Still, Sugar's party was going on at Breadstix, and to his relief Rachel suggested they go.

They talked a little more as they dressed quickly.

"So I think it's best if we don't let on to my dads that we know what they're up to," Rachel said. "Who knows what they might try next."

"Yeah." Finn frowned. "I really wish we could get them to stop this manipulative crap though."

"We could unsettle them," Rachel said, thinking.

"What, like make it look that them pushing us to go faster is really making us go faster, so they'd stop?"

"Reverse reverse psychology," Rachel said excitedly. "Yes!"

"So we pick a wedding date. Something _soon_."

"Like May, after Nationals." She smiled at him. "It's plausible, since it would work well, especially if we win, we'd get married and have a party, celebrate everything at once."

"Then graduate and move to New York together."

"Yes. And we'd want to do that anyway... if we've learned anything from tonight it's that we're going to need to adjust to living together, so the sooner we start the sooner we'll get that figured out."

Finn grinned. "Actually this plan sounds pretty good."

"It does, doesn't it?" They exchanged speculative looks. "I bet my dads won't think so." Rachel smoothed her dress down. "Let's go tell them and then head to the party. Are you ready?"

"Yeah, all packed," Finn said. "I think I'll go back to my place afterwards, all my school stuff is at home anyway." He looked over at Rachel. "Not that I don't love sleeping with you, of course."

"I know," she said, smiling back at him. "But it's different when they're organizing it for us and they're around. We'll just have to do it again sometime soon, when we can manage it ourselves. And we'll have more fun at the party if we don't have to worry about dealing with this again tonight or controlling ourselves in the morning."

They descended to the living room and explained their new plan to Rachel's dads. Finn plastered on a happy grin and pretended to ignore their suppressed shock at the planned May wedding. But behind it all he couldn't help but think that, while the original purpose of this plan was to fight back against their parents' scheming, it was starting to be quite appealing. _If we're going to move to New York together, and we want to spend the rest of our lives together, why not get married?_

He escorted Rachel outside and helped her into his truck. "Next stop, Breadstix," Finn said, starting the engine.

"Unless you want to drop by your house now," Rachel suggested.

"Why would we do that? Nobody's home, Mom and Burt are going to a movie and Kurt and Sam will be at Breadstix."

"Exactly."

"Oh." Finn blushed a little and flashed Rachel a grin. "We could stop over. The party should last for a while and it's still really early."

When they arrived at the Hudson-Hummel residence, though, Finn drove straight past; the light was on and he could see the flicker of the TV and the shapes of two people on the couch. "Guess they lied, or changed their minds," Finn fumed. "Oh well, Breadstix it is. Let's get our party on."


	2. Chapter 2

Friday evening after dinner at home, Finn excused himself to go to his room to study. They had a big rehearsal the next day for their Regionals performance, so he wanted to put some time in on preparing to retake the SAT. He looked over the vocabulary words, complete with his attempts at using Rachel's tricks to help him understand and remember: song quotes (a lot of prog – how did those guys use such big words in songs anyway?), sentences about things he cared about, things he could relate to. A few of them were things he'd written about Rachel, which made him smile.

He heard a knock at his half-open door, and looked over to see Kurt.

"What is it?" Finn asked brusquely.

"Sounds like you're still mad at me then."

"Kind of, yeah," Finn answered, looking back at his study materials. "You really sicced the parents on us, and I haven't heard any apology."

"I'm not sorry I told them," Kurt said, coming into Finn's room and sitting on the edge of his bed, ignoring Finn's glare at his uninvited entry. "And if you can't deal with your parents, don't you think that maybe you shouldn't be doing it?"

"Deal with what, the people we trusted the most trying to break us up? If anything, that just makes us more sure about each other, seeing as we can't trust anyone else."

"You can trust me."

"Obviously not."

Kurt got up and closed the door, then returned to the end of Finn's bed. He looked over at Finn sitting in his desk chair. "Someone needs to look out for your interests here, since you're not," he insisted. "And marrying Rachel just because she's all you think you have right now, when you have so much more going for you -"

"That's not why I proposed," Finn interrupted. He looked down at his study notes and pushed them aside, then gave his stepbrother a hard look. "I asked Rachel to marry me because I love her, because I don't want my future to be without her," he said. "And yeah, the rest of my life is pretty fucked up right now, but however I fix it up I want to make sure I have her in it." He gritted his teeth. "The fact that she's all I've got isn't why I proposed, maybe it helped me realize that I should, but it isn't why I did. It is why I want you to stop ragging on it, though. Isn't it bad enough that I feel like crap about everything else, you have to try to make me feel like crap about her too?"

"I – didn't mean to do that."

"That's a start."

"But you need to work on the rest of your future too."

"Of course I do, don't you think I know that?" Finn gestured at the study notes on his desk. "I'm sitting here studying on a Friday night! And you know who else tells me that I can do anything I want to? Rachel."

"Yes she believes in you, but you need to believe in yourself too," Kurt insisted. "You can't build your future around her no matter how good she makes you feel."

"Why not?"

"What?"

"I know she's part of my future, so why not start with that?" Finn asked. "Yeah, there'll be more too. But I can start with Rachel and fit the rest in."

"That doesn't sound... healthy," Kurt said. "To limit yourself that way."

"To doing things that I can do in New York, yeah, that's really limiting," Finn replied sarcastically. "Rachel's independent, she doesn't need someone to fetch and carry for her, just the right person to love her and be with her. And I need that too, and she's it. And since I know she's the one for me, and she knows I'm the one for her, we're not going to try to grow apart when what we really want is to grow together."

"From what I hear the 'living together' experiment didn't go too well."

Finn slammed his book closed. "Butt out, Kurt. It wasn't our experiment anyway, it was a set-up. And it still went a whole lot better than when Mom and I first moved in with you." _Hell, how did __**Kurt**__ think he was going to share a bathroom with Rachel in New York? Recipe for disaster._

"But now you're talking about getting married in May..."

"I'd marry her _next week_ if it meant the rest of you would give up and stop trying to tear us apart," Finn said grimly. "We're engaged. It happened and it's not going to un-happen, and if it did it would just hurt us a whole lot more, so why do you keep pushing at this? If you want to know what's sped everything up from an engagement that we weren't even talking about, you should ask the person who caused all this pressure by ratting us out." He exhaled, exasperated. "Look, this isn't going anywhere, and I'm trying to study to make something more of this future that you're so damn sure I can have. So drop it or leave, your choice Kurt."

"How about both."

"Works for me." As Kurt turned to go, though, Finn called back at him: "But while you're telling this Hudson not to try to be with the one he loves, are you planning to bug my mom next not to give up her career here to move to DC with your dad? Or is that okay because she's not a guy?"

"That's low, Finn."

"So is what you've been doing to Rachel and me."

Now that Kurt had left him alone, Finn closed his door and tried to turn his attention back to the SAT vocabulary. Privately he didn't get the purpose behind all these complicated words; sure, he understood it when Rachel explained about needing to be precise, and he did kind of get that when he listened to her talk and to music. But his own priorities were simpler words, ones he could really feel.

Ones that were letting him down majorly right now, things like family and home.

Family for so long had been him and his mom. And always in the background, the idea – make that ideal – of his long-dead dad. Idea and ideal, was there some sort of fancy way he could put those together when the spellings were so much alike? Anyway, he'd always had a sense of responsibility to his mom for all she'd done for him, bringing him up alone. And he'd always had this feeling about his father in his life. Well his hero dad was a lie, his mom had remarried, and though he liked Burt he found everyone was being allowed to move on with their lives except him. Sure, Burt thought he'd be good to step in to run the tire shop. But wasn't that more about what Burt needed than about himself? His mom had found a new family to sacrifice for, but when he was trying to establish something for his own – a foundation, that's a good word – they were all _No you can't, you don't know what you want, you don't know what's good for you._ As if anything, ever, could be better for him than his shining girl that inspired him, listened to him and always really supported him, that loved him and let him love her. The only person who'd taken time out from her own stuff to be there for him when his dreams had turned to dust. And his "home" was filled with people who were leaving him to mind it for them and trying to separate him from the one person he could rely on, in whose arms and eyes and heart he found he was truly home. And she was the same about him, he knew that, knew the disappointment she felt at how her dads and their own little special family were only there for her when she was who they wanted her to be, and a lot of the time not even then. Rachel – that they'd found each other and worked around their differences was a friggin' miracle. Finn chastised himself for mentally cursing when thinking about Rachel. Maybe there was something to this whole vocabulary-expanding thing. Okay, complete and utter miracle. And you don't walk away from a miracle.

After a few more passes through his vocabulary words, Finn was interrupted by his phone, ringing with the special clip of 'Faithfully' he currently used for Rachel. He smiled and answered it. "Hey gorgeous."

"Hello handsome," Rachel answered, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "I know you said you were studying tonight... how's that going?"

"Better since I kicked Kurt out," Finn said. "I don't know why he came to talk to me anyway, he isn't saying anything I'm interested in hearing."

"He means well," Rachel said. "Or that's what I keep telling myself, it still hurts that he's so unsupportive of us and started off so much trouble. But I can agree with him when it comes to you, that you can be more ambitious for yourself, so hopefully we'll be able to work things out with him soon."

"Yeah." Finn exhaled. "So, what's up with you? I mean, not that I don't love to hear your voice, for like anything at all, but did you want something?"

Rachel giggled. "Well I was hoping to get more than just your voice," she admitted. "My dads had to go out and they won't be back until the middle of the night, so I was wondering if you could come over. Stay over, actually. They'll be back before morning, but they did say that we should be doing things like that, right?"

"They did," Finn admitted. "So did my mom and Burt."

"So they can't really object if we do. And since they're out, we can start the night off properly."

Finn really hoped that _properly_ meant the same thing to her in this context as it did to him. Hell, he was getting a little hard just thinking about it. "Well, I do really need to study..." he said, drawing it out, chuckling at the frustrated noise he heard from her end. Oh yeah, she wanted _properly_ all right. "It's okay Rach, how about I finish up with the practice tests and when I score well enough I'll be right over. Change of clothes and everything, so I can go to the rehearsal from your place."

"All right," she chirped. "But since I'm going to wait I want a song out of you when you get here."

Rachel melted when he sang to her, so he should have thought of that himself. "Sure thing, babe." This was going to be a good night.

Suitably motivated, Finn was quite impressed by how much he'd improved his vocabulary score on the practice tests. _Maybe Rachel will work as long term motivation too_, he thought, _get my life together so I can deserve her. And then these people will stop thinking that she's going to ruin my life or I'm going to ruin hers, or both._

He packed his overnight bag and headed down to the living room, where his mom was watching TV. "Hey Mom," he said. "I'm staying over at Rachel's tonight. I'll probably go straight to the school from there for rehearsal, so I'll see you tomorrow night."

His mom was a bit surprised – he smiled inwardly at the way he'd stated it, just matter-of-fact with no 'Okay?' or anything that implied he needed permission. Like they said, if he and Rachel were old enough to get engaged, they were old enough to sleep over, right? Besides, with his mom and Burt headed for DC, Rachel's dads away so much, and Kurt over at Blaine's a lot, it was stupid that he would have to ask permission to stay with Rachel. _They're all abandoning us anyway, so it's none of their business that we're together._

"Oh," she said. "Are her dads there?"

"Nope,'' he replied. "She says they'll be back sometime later tonight though. Bye Mom." With that Finn took his bag and left, his mom noticeably nonplussed behind him.

Rachel met him at her front door, having heard his truck pull up. Once inside, he pulled her to him for a soft lingering kiss. "It's good to see you too," he whispered as their mouths parted. She was still wearing the blue dress she'd had on at school; it looked very good on her, but somehow the better her clothes looked on her the more he wanted to take them off. _Now there's a definition of irony that's not going to show up on any test._

"That was fast," Rachel commented. "You must be really putting in some good work."

"I'm motivated," Finn admitted. He shed his coat and boots, storing them in the front closet. "In more ways than one, actually – I wanted to get done quickly for tonight and I want to do well, make that need to do well, to improve my chances of getting in somewhere near you."

"What would you call that?" Rachel asked with a small smile.

"Is this a test?"

"Maybe."

"Do I get bonus points?" One feature of studying with Rachel was how well making out worked as a reward system – it drastically increased the motivation both of Finn to get things right and of Rachel to help him. Sometimes he'd screw up just to tease her, since he knew how much she wanted to kiss him. Sexually frustrated Rachel was seriously hot.

"Definitely."

Finn smirked. "Synergy. Two things working better together than each would apart. Like you and me."

"That's worth extra bonus for sucking up," Rachel said, returning his smirk.

"So where's my bonus?" Finn asked, moving closer to Rachel.

"Upstairs," she replied, moving quickly away from him and up the stairs to her room.

Finn picked up his overnight bag and followed her, taking the stairs two at a time. _Oh yeah, this is going to be an excellent night. And the studying was worth every second._


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as Finn dropped his bag in her room, Rachel flung herself against him, reaching up to kiss him deeply.

"Well," she asked him after their mouths parted. "Like your bonus?"

"That's not bonus," Finn objected with a half-smile, pulling her back to him. "You'd've kissed me anyway as soon as we got up here." The whole bonus bit was mostly fictional, since they always wanted to make out; they both knew it was primarily a motivational excuse, but the game worked so they kept it up.

"True." Rachel looked speculative and turned away for a moment. Then suddenly she was back on him, hands in his hair, her lips pressed passionately to his, her body molding against him. They were soon both breathless. "How's that?" she panted.

"Definitely worth studying for," Finn gasped.

"One good sucking up deserves another," Rachel giggled, giving him another kiss.

"Like... reciprocation?"

"Right."

Finn smirked. "If I get a hard-on during that test it'll be all your fault."

"Just write it with your big Finn brain, not your little Finn brain. Your not-quite-as-big Finn brain," she amended.

"That's no help, both the big Finn and the not-quite-as-big-but-getting-bigger-all-the-time Finn are totally gone on you."

"Ooh!" Rachel kissed him again. "Forget what I said before, there's nothing wrong with your vocabulary when you can say sweet things like that."

"That's sweet? I thought I was getting a bit creepy, talking about my, uh, equipment."

"It translates as sweet. And I started that bit anyway. I hope you don't mind that _I_ talk about your 'equipment'. To you alone, in the most complimentary terms, of course."

Finn laughed. "No, that's not a problem. Seriously, though, Rach, all the innuendo's kind of unexpected. I love it, but it's not something you used to go in for, before. At all."

"Before, we weren't doing the things that go with the innuendo," Rachel said. "I'm not a tease, Finn, you know that."

"Says the girl who was tickling my inner thigh during Mercedes's solo, in front of everyone."

Rachel giggled. "Just doing what came naturally. And it's not teasing if I intend to follow through, which I do. Other things just got in the way."

"Like my jeans, at the time."

"Yes." She blushed, then looked up at him with a flirty smile. "I'm not teasing, I'm just being honest. With you, and with myself."

"In that case, my honest future wife..." Finn looked down at her, his face full of desire. "You did call me to come over, could you tell me why?"

"I was hoping you would sing to me," Rachel reminded him.

"Oh yeah, give me a couple minutes." Finn went to dig out his iPod. He'd given some thought to what to sing, on the drive over; scrolling through some of his music now, he noticed one that seemed like it fit. He plugged into Rachel's good sound system, then adjusted the amp's equalizer to lower the volume of the vocal frequencies so she'd hear less of the original singer's voice behind his. It was a bit high for his range, but both the song lyrics and the nature of the band itself spoke to how he felt. And as a bonus, it was obscure enough that she'd probably never heard it before. He breathed deeply, getting himself back under control and thinking about the song and what he was trying to say with it.

Two years ago, at Mr. Schue's well-meaning instigation, he'd messed up with Rachel by going in search of his 'inner rockstar', which had been really dumb, especially since he didn't want to behave the way rockstars did – it just wasn't him. But last year he'd seen a band biopic that showed him he'd really only needed to consider a different kind of rockstar, like these guys, three technique-focused family men who'd played together for decades, two of them playing together since their mid-teens, where the only big trouble any of them had gotten into was as a father defending a son. That style of rockstar was the kind Finn could relate to. _If you focus on the right stuff and work at it, things can last. And the differences we have can actually be good for us, like this song says._

Finn cleared his throat and pressed Play, then took Rachel's hands in his.

_We are secrets to each other  
>Each one's life a novel<br>No one else has read  
>Even joined in bonds of love<br>We're linked to one another  
>By such slender threads<em>

_We are planets to each other_  
><em>Drifting in our orbits<em>  
><em>To a brief eclipse<em>  
><em>Each of us a world apart<em>  
><em>Alone and yet together<em>  
><em>Like two passing ships<em>

_Just between us_  
><em>I think it's time for us to recognize<em>  
><em>The differences we sometimes fear to show<em>  
><em>Just between us<em>  
><em>I think it's time for us to realize<em>  
><em>The spaces in between<em>  
><em>Leave room for you and I to grow<em>

_We are strangers to each other_  
><em>Full of sliding panels<em>  
><em>An illusion show<em>  
><em>Acting well rehearsed routines<em>  
><em>Or playing from the heart?<em>  
><em>It's hard for one to know<em>

_Just between us  
>I think it's time for us to recognize<br>The differences we sometimes fear to show  
>Just between us<br>I think it's time for us to realize  
>The spaces in between<br>Leave room for you and I to grow_

Finn's hands slid up Rachel's arms, and he took a step closer to her, one hand moving to hold her waist, the other to cup her face. She looked at him with adoration, such love, her eyes wide and starting to tear up. His breath caught, and he gave thanks for the instrumental break. He wanted to kiss her right now, her parted lips so inviting, but knew he'd never finish the song if he did.

_We are islands to each other  
>Building hopeful bridges<br>On a troubled sea  
>Some are burned or swept away<br>Some we would not choose  
>But we're not always free <em>

_Just between us  
>I think it's time for us to recognize<br>The differences we sometimes fear to show  
>Just between us<br>I think it's time for us to realize  
>The spaces in between<br>Leave room for you and I to grow *_

Rachel was already leaning up to Finn, and he kissed her passionately as the song ended.

"That was so beautiful, Finn," Rachel whispered in his ear. She pulled back a bit so she could look into his eyes. "I've never heard it before, but what it says - it's so right. So _us_." She leaned up to kiss him again, making it a full-body effort, her hands wrapping into his hair and around his neck, her body pressing hard into his and bending back a little under him as he leaned down to her. He held her tightly and reflexively started to grind. "And your voice, I could just..." she continued, gasping a little, kissing him again.

"You could just what?" he asked, following it up by sucking at the pulse point on her neck.

"I could listen to you sing for hours...except then you couldn't do _that_ – oh Finn."

Finn gave a low chuckle, and continued to worry at her neck until she gave a sustained moan, hardening at the sound. "I know what you mean," he said huskily. He took a few steps forward, guiding her to the side of her bed. "I have the same problem with you."

"Problem?" She looked at him, her deep brown eyes wide.

"Your mouth is so talented it's such a shame it can only do one thing at once."

Rachel blushed, and he took a moment to watch it suffuse her beautiful face. She lowered her lashes and looked up at him flirtatiously. "I suppose then I'll have to work on some of my other talents," she murmured with a coy smile. Her hands were on his waist, and she lowered them to work on his belt.

_Time for some irony..._ Finn caressed Rachel's collarbone and started to unzip her dress. Yeah she looked great in the dress, but that was nothing compared to how she looked with it sliding off her shoulders. _That's like the opposite of synergy._

They disrobed quickly and moved to Rachel's bed, intent on showing each other just how much they'd missed being together earlier in the week.

* * *

><p>* "Entre Nous" by Rush; lyrics written by Neil Peart.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Since this fic is scenes in and around "Heart" and "On My Way", I'm going to try to get it done before the show returns from hiatus and wrecks my conclusion. Most of it consists of "missing" conversations._

_Disclaimer: As usual I own nothing._

* * *

><p>Finn came back from cleaning himself up in the bathroom, the used condom in one hand, and dug into his overnight bag for a baggie to put it in.<p>

"Just leave it in the wastebasket," Rachel said.

"But we always do pack-in pack-out," Finn replied, confused.

"Not anymore." Rachel sat up, the sheet draped around her. "Since my dads are involving themselves in our business, I don't see any point in trying to hide it from them," she said.

"But you don't want to do it with them here."

Rachel shrugged. "Do you?" She smiled as Finn's eyes bugged out in panic at the thought. "Of course not, we'd be too self-conscious about it, and who knows what they'd do if they heard us. But they're quite aware of the nature of our activities and are even overtly encouraging them, so it's silly to go to all that extra effort to hide it after the fact."

Finn looked back at Rachel with a frown. "This sounds like more games."

"It's being honest. A bit aggressively honest, but honest nevertheless."

"Okay." He dropped the used condom in the wastebasket by Rachel's desk. "But your dads had better not do any weird hexes on my juice."

Rachel laughed. "Of course not. Come back to bed."

Finn still frowned, but returned to lie down with her. "Is that why you wanted me to stay over, too?" he asked.

Rachel turned to face him, and wrapped her arms around his bare torso. "I want you to stay over because I like you staying over," she insisted. "Your arms are my favorite place to spend the night, and we have a lot of time to make up for." She touched his cheek, trying to smooth away his stiff expression. "What's wrong, Finn? Is something about this bothering you?"

"I don't know," he said. "I guess I just don't want to feel like you're kind of using me to get back at them."

"Finn!" Rachel protested. "Please don't think that. Yes I'm trying to get back at them, but that's for you, because I don't like how they're threatening our relationship." She looked at him seriously. "You're the love of my life," she said.

Finn's frown turned into a grin. "I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of hearing you call me that," he said.

"Well I don't think I'm going to get tired of that grin you get on your face when you hear it," she replied, giving him a kiss. "I love how you love that I love you." She shrugged at his confused look at her statement. "It makes sense if you unwrap it enough. Anyway, this is the most important relationship I have, with you, and my dads are threatening that with their stupid scheming. They don't seem to care how much it would hurt me to lose you, or have any concern about you at all. We need them to stop."

"Think this will help? Us acting like we're going along with what they say they're supporting?"

"If nothing else they may get so scared that we're going to run off together that they'll accept our engagement when we don't."

"Unless you _want_ to just run off together," Finn said, smiling, holding her close.

Rachel snuggled into his bare chest. "I don't need a ring on my finger to know that I'm yours. My dads are completely committed to each other and they're not even allowed to get legally married."

"That's dumb."

"Yes, it is," she said. "But because of that I know it's my heart that matters, not some piece of paper, and my heart is yours."

"Me too," Finn said. "I mean, my heart is yours too," he murmured into her hair as she kissed his chest. "Rest of me as well." He picked up her left hand and played with it, stroking her fingers and feeling the engagement ring she wore. "But I love what this means," he said softly. "That it's you and me, forever. That we're going to build a life together and figure stuff out together, and I'll always be there for you and you'll always be there for me, and have a family, and... everything."

"Yes," Rachel replied, biting her lower lip softly as she thought about all the things Finn was saying. "You and me, and everything."

"Do – do you ever think about kids?" Finn asked quietly. "Our kids, I mean."

"Of course," Rachel answered. She looked up at him and smiled. "I want to have kids someday, and I accepted your proposal, so... yes." She blushed. "Of course I did before too." She stroked his face. "I hope they have your eyes," she said softly. "And your smile, I do so love your smile. But above all your heart."

Finn smiled in reaction to that, and she stroked the corners of his mouth. "Do you remember when we talked about this before?"

Rachel laughed. "Of course. It's funny, it seems so long ago," she said. "Back when I thought I would wait until I was twenty-five and had a few Tony Awards before I would have sex, and I would only just let you touch my breasts even fully clothed. And here we are now."

Finn held her naked body even closer to his, and shared a chuckle with her. "I'm glad you found you wanted me to touch you and be with you," he said. "Even without any awards."

"You're all the award I need for that," she said. "Actually I've always wanted to be with you, to touch you, and to have you touch me," she admitted. "Please don't think I didn't. I was just scared, scared of how I was feeling and how much more being with you would make me feel, and I wanted to wait until I could handle those feelings better."

Finn smiled. "Considering where we are now... I'd say it worked. Neither of us was really ready back then, we couldn't have had it like this." He slowly stroked her hand down her bare back, and she pressed herself further into him and leaned up to kiss him.

"Mmmm..." Rachel hummed in pleasure at his touch. "Oh, Finn." She closed her eyes, absorbing the sensation, and they lay together for a while. "We should wait a lot on kids though," she said eventually.

"Well sure," Finn said. "We're not growing up any faster, just together."

"Yes. And, I know this sounds like it's still my old naïve self, but I do want the awards first if possible,"

Rachel said. She caught Finn's quizzical look. "It's just a much better career path and it would make things so much easier. Of course I wouldn't want to wait too long either way, but the awards would give such an advantage in making a comeback later, so it would be so much easier to take a long career break and concentrate completely on being a wife and mother." She looked at Finn with some concern. "Does that make sense to you?"

Finn had zoned out a little at her words. _Concentrate completely on being a wife and mother... __**my**__ wife. And mother of __**my**__ children. My – __**our**__ – family._ He blinked, coming out of his reverie. "Oh yes, Rach," he said with a smile. "Yes, it does."

"So, a few awards on the shelf to help me make a triumphant return to the stage, two or three little Hudsons running around, plus one particular very big Hudson, of course," she mused, stroking his bare chest. "All the things I need for a balanced dream life."

Finn kissed her softly. "Little Hudsons," he murmured. "Sounds wonderful."

"It does," Rachel responded, returning his kiss. "Of course they won't stay little for long. I firmly expect them to tower over me by their early teens."

Finn laughed. "You've really thought this through, haven't you?"

"Well, yes," Rachel said. "It's not too much, is it?"

"No," Finn smiled. "No, it's great."

"And Broadway can be stable, relatively anyway, I mean it's regular work in the same place if I can pull it off," Rachel explained. "It takes up the evenings of course, but I think it should be quite compatible with having a family life if we work at it."

"That sounds like a great plan to me." Finn stroked her shoulders. "I can hardly wait."

Rachel gave a happy sigh, enjoying his touch. "I'm glad you like it," she said. "No matter how much I plan it always seems like your heart knows better than my brain, so always tell me how you feel."

"Okay."

"Sometimes it seems like just a technicality," she said softly. "Our getting married, I mean. Like we already are in the way that matters. Like Maria and Tony, they promised themselves to each other and that was all they could do, but that was what was really important. When we're like this – it's like I'm already your wife. Certainly already yours."

"Yeah." Finn breathed. "I could do without getting shot though."

"Our parents are conspiring but it's not gang warfare." Rachel smiled. "Actually, in times past we would already be married, officially," she said. "We've declared our intentions and consummated the relationship. That used to be enough."

"Consummated...?" Finn wasn't too sure what that word meant in this context.

"Mmm-hmm. Once tonight already, I'm pretty sure you noticed." Rachel kissed him, then snuggled back onto his chest as he chuckled. "The rest is paperwork. License, officiator, witnesses, change of name."

"Change – you're planning to change your name?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Rachel looked down into Finn's eyes.

"We've just never talked about it. And I don't need you to. I mean, I know you've been dreaming about your name up in lights your whole life so I kind of thought you'd want to keep it. Modern girl and all."

"Actually I'm thinking about hyphenating," Rachel said. "Especially since it'll be before I really get started on the stage, it's hard to change it after, but, well, you'll be part of it all too so it feels right for your name to be there. I couldn't do any of it without you."

"I find that hard to believe," Finn protested. "You're so talented, with your voice, your presence, and you've always had the drive to succeed."

"Lots of people have talent and drive," Rachel said. "Even lots of people in Ohio, like that group Kurt and I met back in September. Talent and drive makes me a girl who can sing, but it's just performance, it's not really art. To be a singer, a real artist, that needs inspiration and heart, a connection to people and to what I sing. You give me that. You even helped me with that last year when we weren't together, you knew I had to be in touch with how I felt in order to write. And I'm so much better when I'm singing to you and with you, you inspire me completely, it just matters so much more than anything I do without you."

Finn was overcome by her protestations and pulled her to him for a passionate kiss, then held her close. "So...," he said, regaining his breath. "Berry-Hudson?"

"I was thinking Hudson first," Rachel said, smiling. "It just feels better that way, fitting with your name, like in a list I'd be right with you where I belong. And 'berry' goes at the end, like 'strawberry', 'blackberry', 'bumbleberry'..."

"Hudsonberry." Finn chuckled. "Sounds delicious," he whispered in her ear.

Rachel giggled. "It's a very special kind of berry, just for you," she whispered back.

"I'm looking forward to tasting it."

"Ooh, I know, we should make a pie," Rachel said excitedly. "Just for us, a special mix of berries that will be a Hudson-Berry pie. I'm baking pies soon to contribute to the mathlete fundraiser in mid-March, if you'll help me we can make a special pie for us then too."

"I'm not much help in baking. The pie sounds great though."

"Help like you usually do, in tasting," Rachel insisted. "And we should figure out the filling together, since it'll be our special Hudson-Berry pie. You always have good ideas about what goes well together."

"This is my best one, even if you had it first," Finn said, stroking down her back again. "Speaking of tasting berries..." he turned her gently onto her back, then leaned down to nuzzle at her breast, kissing it and sliding his tongue over her nipple. "And since we're not hiding things any more," Finn murmured, starting to nibble at her neck, "how about I mark you up a little..." he started sucking under the corner of her jaw, a little harder, and nipping with his teeth.

"Mmm..." Rachel moaned with pleasure at the sensation. "But Regionals..."

"It'll fade in a week." Finn nipped again, then stroked the spot with his tongue. "You taste so good."

Rachel caressed his back, and one touch led to another, and another, and many more. Ultimately they lay nestled together, sated.

Finn went to clean himself off again and put on his sleep clothes, and he came out to deposit the second used condom beside the first. "I'm done for now if you want to start your routine," he said.

"Yes, I should, thanks. I'll leave the door open and try not to take too long."

"Yeah, okay." Hearing her shower start, Finn looked around for something to do. _Should've brought something, I guess,_ he thought. _Wait a minute – this isn't a fair test._ "Hey Rach?"

"Yes?" Rachel stuck her head out from the shower.

"We wouldn't have this problem if we were really moved in together," he said. "Bathroom access, okay, that's an issue. But I wouldn't be just waiting around if I had my stuff here."

"That's true, you'd do what you normally do," Rachel replied, looking speculative. "You know it's okay for you to use my computer, right? I think I'm still logged in."

"Okay, thanks," Finn said. He moved the mouse and found the desktop appear. "Yeah, you're still on. I won't pry into stuff or read your mail, I promise." To his relief the webcam was clearly unplugged.

"I trust you." She pulled back into the shower, but stuck her head out again a moment later. "Finn?"

"Yeah Rach?"

"While I'm showering, if you have a moment, how about you pick out something for me to wear to bed," she said. "Nightdresses are at the end of the closet next to the dresser."

"Uh, sure," Finn answered, a bit intimidated.

"Something that covers well but is still accessible," she elaborated. "In case we want to get busy again later."

"Right." Finn swallowed. _Okay, that sounded good..._

"Don't worry," she said, noticing his tone. "They are all my clothes so there are no wrong answers."

Finn opened Rachel's closet, and took a look at the various options. There were a lot. Certainly some of them were things he'd like to see her in – but her dads would be there when they woke up, so anything remotely skimpy would need a robe over it too. He sighed and closed his eyes, moving his hand idly over the clothes. _Actually that's not a bad idea,_ he realized. _We're going to sleep, so what do I want to __**touch**__ her in? _He stroked his hand along the row of hangers and stopped when he felt something soft, like a heavy t-shirt. He took a look at the item and smiled. _That's more like it._ He took it out and hung it on the towel rail, then sat down to listen to music.

After a while Rachel had finished washing, and was drying her hair at the sink.

"I'm just going to hop in the shower and wash the gel out of my hair, okay?" Finn said, meeting Rachel's eyes in the mirror. She nodded, still brushing out her hair, and he quickly stripped down and stepped into the stall.

Finn came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, cleaned up and dressed back in his sleep shirt and shorts, to see Rachel waiting for him in her bed, the bedclothes pulled back to let him in. He smiled, looking at her wearing the knee length white-and-navy striped nightdress that he'd picked out from her closet, then got in next to her and pulled the blanket over them.

"So, did I pass the test?" he asked lightly, putting his arms around her.

"Test?" Rachel looked back at him, confused.

"Yeah, you know," Finn continued, starting to stroke her shoulders, feeling their smoothness through the soft knit of her dress.

"Oh, this?" Rachel touched the front of her dress, just below the V of the neckline. "This wasn't a test. Not for you anyway." She turned to face Finn, and caught his questioning look. "As I said, they're all my clothes. Do I like it especially that you chose the one I bought because it reminded me of you?" She smiled at him. "Of course I do. But that's me wanting validation, not testing you."

Finn moved a little closer to her. "So you bought your nightdress thinking about me?" he smiled softly. "Do you think about me when you wear it too, go to sleep thinking about me?"

"Of course I do," Rachel answered, her face bare inches from his. "Though that's true of the other ones too, I always think about you when I'm going to sleep. I even tell you that when we talk just before."

"Oh yeah." Finn grinned sheepishly. "Me too."

"But when I'm in an extra special 'thinking about Finn' mood I often wear this," she said. "Especially if you're busy and we can't talk last thing. I like how it makes me feel, just a bit of how you make me feel."

"And how do I make you feel?" Finn's mouth breathed his question into hers.

"Amazing," Rachel whispered her reply. "And so, so special." She closed the gap and kissed him, touching her tongue to his and then sucking on his bottom lip.

"Rach..." Finn gasped her name as he gripped her shoulders, returning her kiss. Her hands came up around his shoulders and they held each other tightly as they kissed deeply.

"But you are so special," Finn murmured as he caught his breath. "You don't need me to show you that."

"Oh, I need you," Rachel breathed. "How I need you, Finn."

Finn pulled back a little. "I just don't get it, I guess," he admitted. "I mean, I know you love me. It blows me away every day, that you love me and you want to spend the rest of your life with me. I just don't get what's special about me that you do."

"Finn." Rachel was aghast. "I can't have you thinking you're not good enough for me, that I'm somehow wrong to love you. You're amazing." She snaked her hand between them and touched his chin, steering his face to look into hers. "I wish you could see yourself as you are in my eyes," she said seriously. "Look deeply and see yourself there so you can see the same wonderful man that I see."

Finn swallowed. "I mean, I know you love how we are together..." he steeled himself and met her eyes, diving into the warm pools of dark brown.

"That's not it. Well, that's fabulous, but if you weren't _you_, if you weren't the wonderful man you are, and we didn't have this amazing trust, that wouldn't be possible." Rachel frowned to herself, thinking, then gave Finn a serious smile. "Let me tell you what you've done, that shows who you are," she said, fixing him with her gaze, starting to stroke the drying hair at the nape of his neck. Finn blinked, letting her continue. "When you asked me to marry you, you said you had 'high school hero, life zero' written all over you. You don't. Everything you've done shows that you can do so much more in life too. It's not obvious what that'll be doing, not like it is for me, but I can tell you that you're going to be just as much of a hero in life."

"But how can you know that?"

"I know you," Rachel insisted. "And this isn't just my love for you talking. You're the guy who gets things done when others can't. You're the guy who gets everyone else to listen to him and pull together. You have saved the day, again and again, and in ways that count for a whole lot more than just high school."

"I have?"

"We wouldn't even be in Regionals if you hadn't pulled off Sectionals. Without me, against Santana and Mercedes, and I know there was a lot of despair and infighting leading up to the competition. But on the day – I couldn't take my eyes off of you, you were so wonderful. And not just because I normally can't, or because I love your voice, though I do, but because of how you pulled everyone together. I could feel how you led that final piece. And two years ago, we were falling apart until you showed up with the song we needed. And that was so hard for you, I know that, just being there after all that had happened, but you came and put us back together when we needed you."

"I brought a song and a pep talk. You pulled out your solo on the fly -"

"I'd been singing it for years and even then I was scared to perform it," Rachel insisted. "You brought a new song, and a plan, basically out of nothing, and we all listened to you, and you got us to pull it off. It's what you do best. When the pressure's on, and there's hardly any time and everyone else is falling apart, you pull things together. Before Regionals too, two years ago. And the championship football game last year – you didn't even have half your team for half of it."

"You helped a lot."

"I helped you. I supported you. But you did it. Just like you planned out Coach Sylvester's sister's funeral last year, and insisted that we do it, and you were so right about that, even the things that didn't make sense to do. Especially the things that didn't make sense to do, you have the best ideas. And don't forget how you got us to put together Don't Stop – we'd've lost Mr. Schue and the club right at the start if not for that." Rachel caressed his hair. "Now it's you who needs to be told Don't Stop Believin'," she said. "Don't stop believing in yourself. The movie never ends."

"It goes on and on and on and on..." Finn sang softly beneath his breath.

"And so will we. I believe in you, Finn, and I always will." Rachel kissed him lightly. "And you're also extraordinarily hot and a wonderful lover. Can't forget that."

"Oh yeah?"

"Just don't let it go to your head."

"I try not to be that dumb twice. Okay, a third time." Finn slowly stroked his hands down her back. "And I hope I'm never stupid enough again to let you go." He kissed Rachel, massaging her lips with his. "Great pep talk," he whispered.

"I learned from the master," she whispered back.

"But you left something out."

"Really?"

"All those things – I up my game around you," he explained.

"So do I. I'd never sang that solo so well before. And I'd be even better now, I understand it more." She pulled him close. "My heart's a drummer," she murmured in his ear. "Synergy, like you said."

Finn pressed closer to her, feeling her body with his. He was hard again, so aroused by her, and he had no idea how he was ever going to get to sleep like that. He stroked down her back and started to lightly knead her ass, then froze as he realized she had nothing on underneath her nightdress.

"Don't stop, Finn," Rachel sighed. "What is it?"

"You're, ah, not wearing panties," Finn answered, reddening.

"Should I be?"

"Uh..."

"You didn't pick any out," Rachel commented with a small smile.

"I didn't know I could decide that."

"I'd've put some on anyway if I'd wanted to."

"Oh."

Rachel rolled on top of him, sitting up so that she was straddling him, her nightdress riding up her thighs. "Yes."

Finn looked up at her and smirked. "I thought I'd've tired you out by now."

"Not quite." Rachel gave him an intense look. "But you're welcome to try." She started grinding against him, her face changing with building desire. "I could feel you, just now," she murmured. "I could feel you wanting me. I want you too. I've already spent too many nights wearing this and wanting you, alone."

Finn let loose a moan, then held her waist to reposition her. He grabbed another condom from the nightstand. "Time to change that."


	5. Chapter 5

They awoke the next morning with Finn's arms still around Rachel. She stirred, and felt him tighten around her a little. His hand rubbed lightly over her breast. It felt very good – but her dads must be home, and in any case they had to get ready for rehearsal. She turned over, smiling at the sight of Finn still mostly asleep, his eyes closed.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Rachel cooed as she ran her hand lightly through Finn's hair.

"Morning, angel," Finn yawned, his eyes still half-closed. "Mmmm." He tightened his arms around her again. "I can get used to this really fast."

Rachel gave him a light kiss. "Unfortunately I'm sure my dads must be home."

"S'okay," Finn mumbled. "Last night was amazing, Rach."

"Oh, did I tire you out?" Rachel giggled.

"You rode me hard, babe," Finn said, still sleepy. He cracked open an eye. "This is not a complaint."

"Compliment appreciated."

"And it's great how we talked so much out." Finn kissed her neck, and Rachel sighed happily. "But yeah, your dads came in last night, around one, they looked in for a moment."

"Did they know you were awake?"

"I don't think so. They said some things they probably wouldn't have wanted us to hear."

"Like what?"

"Something about 'defiling our little princess'..."

"Ouch." Rachel winced. "That's ridiculous, this isn't dirty, we're in love. Given what they've had to deal with themselves, that's a very disappointing attitude. And I was all over you last night, so who's defiling whom here."

Finn smirked. "Heh."

"Did they say anything else?"

"The other one... um, Hiram... he said we looked sweet. Sleeping. Well he thought I was sleeping and it wasn't like I'd moved. So that's good."

"We probably do." Rachel smiled. "I know I like watching you sleep."

Finn smiled. "Me too baby. And then they closed the door, but I could still hear them... something about a plan backfiring and 'what are we going to do if they really do go ahead and get married'."

Rachel grinned widely. "Oh, that's excellent, they're realizing how stupid their mindgames are," she chortled. She was suddenly full of energy. "You can lie in a while longer, love," she said, kissing Finn again and starting to slip from his arms. "I'll get up and make breakfast for you. Need to keep your strength up if I'm going to wear you out like that."

"'Kay, babe." But his arms pulled her close one more time, and he kissed her, a bit harder. "So what are _we_ going to do, Rach?" he asked. "Are we going to go ahead with it? If they don't interfere too much?"

"Do you want to?" Rachel looked seriously at Finn, who though not fully awake sounded quite lucid.

"Yeah," he said softly, looking into her eyes. "It's a lot sooner than we were thinking of, but yes. I know there's a lot of other stuff to figure out, where we can live and all that, but if they're still doing the supportive act then they'll have to let us, right? And even if nothing else changes right away I want to do it, I want to be your husband as soon as you'll have me." Finn gave her a half-smile. "And that's not because you just gave me one of the best nights of my life." He paused, looking at her, trying to gauge her reaction. "How about you?"

Rachel looked down at the bedclothes, then back up into Finn's eyes. "Yes," she said quietly. "Yes, I want that too. And not just because I want to get it settled before they try anything else stupid, though that's clearly a consideration. I'm yours and you're mine, let's make it official." She gave Finn a kiss, then sat up. "I'll try not to be too long in my morning routine," she said. "I can certainly skip the workout."

Finn chuckled and let her go, then turned over and dozed off again.

* * *

><p>Rachel was putting the frying pan on the stove when her dad came in.<p>

"Good morning, princess," Hiram greeted her. "Is that, ah, Finn's truck outside?"

"Yes, he stayed over last night," Rachel said, turning on the burner. She gave him a big smile. "We have glee rehearsal at nine-thirty, so I'm making him some breakfast now."

"Yes, I can kind of see that," Hiram replied, wincing a little as he noticed the love bite on her neck. "Bacon? I wouldn't have thought it of you, sweetie. We're Jewish. And you're vegan."

"Mutual compromise is the cornerstone of any relationship," Rachel replied seriously. "It's not as if I'm going to eat any. But I've long since recognized that my man is a confirmed carnivore, and it certainly seems to work for him so I accept it." She listened to the sound of a shower starting overhead. "That most be Finn now, that sounds like my shower," she said. She bent down and got the saucepan out, then filled it with water at the sink. "I'm going to poach some eggs, would you like some?"

"Yes, sure sweetheart," Hiram said. "But you used to hate even being around a cracked egg."

"It's been a lot easier since I found out that they're not really baby chicks," Rachel explained. "They're not fertilized, and you and Daddy eat them sometimes. I still don't like looking at the staring yolk, it's disgusting, but I won't have to see it when poaching. Besides, it's much healthier than frying."

"Good morning." LeRoy called in from the living room.

"Good morning, Daddy," Rachel called back cheerily. "I'm going to poach some eggs, do you want one?" The shower overhead stopped, and she put several slices of bacon into the now warmed frying pan.

"Yes, thank you princess," he replied. "Hiram, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Hiram excused himself and went into the living room to talk to his husband. They tried to speak softly, but Rachel could still hear their voices.

"There are three used condoms in her wastebasket, Hiram," LeRoy said, sounding agitated.

"Three...? Wow." Hiram stepped back to take a quick look at their daughter, who was humming as she cooked. "I don't know, LeRoy, she seems really happy."

"Three!"

"Well maybe that's why she's so happy?" Hiram offered lamely.

"Our little Broadway princess!"

"I'm pretty sure people on Broadway have sex, LeRoy."

"That's not the point!"

"I think she got a different point... I know, I know, this isn't going well. Her neck..." he groaned. "Let's wait until they go to their rehearsal, then we can figure out what to do."

"How can I even look at him?"

I don't know, just... think of the other boys she's dated. That Jesse creep, or Noah Puckerman. Finn's a nice boy and he's really good to her."

"I know."

"And this was all your idea."

"_I know._"

Rachel smiled to herself, happy that her dads seemed to be starting to realize two important things: that Finn was right for her and that their 'plan' was wrong. She put the pan of water on to boil it, and started chopping up fruit.

Ten minutes later Finn came down, dressed in a McKinley shirt and jeans. He nodded cheerily to Rachel's fathers as he approached the kitchen.

"Good morning," Finn said, smiling. "I hope you had a good evening."

"Ah, yes," Hiram said. "Good morning, Finn, it's good to see you again so soon."

"Well we are becoming family." Finn sniffed the air, enjoying the familiar smell of frying bacon. "That smells delicious, Rach sweetheart," he called out, going into the kitchen. He smiled at her, a more genuine smile than the one he'd had for her fathers. "You're spoiling me, seriously. This is great, well I think it is, but it's not your kind of food at all."

Rachel smiled in return. "Well it is breakfast for you, so it needs to be your kind of breakfast," she said. Finn joined her at the stove and they exchanged a quick kiss. "Though you may like the result better if you keep an eye on it yourself," she said, handing him the spatula. "Show me how it's done."

"Sure." Finn grinned. "When did you even get this anyway?" he asked softly.

"About ten minutes before I called you last night," she replied, speaking quietly. She spooned the eggs carefully from the poaching pan. "It's not an act, I promise, it really is for you."

Finn gave her a sidelong glance as they worked side-by-side at the stove. "Love you."

"Love you too."

Outside the kitchen, Hiram and LeRoy Berry frowned as they watched their vegan daughter and her carnivorous fiancé happily cooking large quantities of animal protein together. The men then turned and glared at each other.


	6. Chapter 6

At rehearsal in the auditorium, the Glee Club spent the morning roughing out the choreography for a mash-up to be sung by the full group, with a few different lead voices. Rachel and Finn danced together, Finn happy that he'd been able to convince Mr. Schue that this would help Finn improve, since he'd practice more and try harder so as not to let Rachel down. He was always better with her. And they faced each other at the start, which was perfect. The ending position had them apart and separated by several others, though, and while it was supposedly for visual effect Finn privately wondered if their teacher still didn't trust them after Nationals.

They ate lunch as a group, then dispersed for a break to let their food go down before resuming the rehearsal. After half an hour Kurt started to wonder where Finn and Rachel had disappeared to. He was annoyed with how poorly his attempt to talk to his stepbrother had gone the night before, but they'd barely looked at each other during rehearsal, much less been able to say anything. At Blaine's suggestion, he decided to check backstage.

"Oh, that's good, Rach," Finn's groaning voice came from near the dressing rooms.

Kurt frowned and stormed in, irate. "Here? Seriously? Can't you two stop going at it for a few hours?" He jerked to a stop as what he saw registered: Finn sitting on a reversed chair, leaning over the chair back as Rachel kneaded his shoulders. Both were fully clothed.

"What are you talking about, Kurt?" Rachel glared at him.

"I – sorry, that sounded -"

"Sounded like what?" Rachel asked pointedly.

"Just some sore muscles, Kurt," Finn said, his head still lowered as Rachel continued her ministrations. "If you've overheard us as often as you say, you should be able to tell the difference."

"Right. Sorry. I'll, ah, leave you to it," Kurt said, backing off.

"Wait, Kurt," Rachel called after him. She smiled a little as he looked back at her. "Since it's not what you thought, you can stay around," she said. "I'm almost done here anyway." She put her head down to Finn's. "How's that, love?" she asked quietly.

"Much better," he said slowly, a smile in his voice. "Thanks, babe." He sat up, Rachel stroking down the length of his back one last time.

"Then I need to go, it's time to walk through the blocking for my solo." She gave Finn a light kiss and left.

Kurt sat down in a neighboring chair. "So I guess she wants us to talk?"

"Yeah." Finn stood up, turned the chair around, and sat down normally. "It's not a bad idea, you know, talk things out or something so they're not so tense. Since we're both not busy right now."

"Hmph." They sat and looked at each other for a few moments. "Did you have a good night?" Kurt asked eventually.

"Ah, great," Finn replied hesitantly.

"You're questioning it."

"I'm questioning you wanting to know about it. It's not the sort of thing you want to know, you know, given where I was." He looked pointedly at Kurt. "And what I was doing."

"Yes, okay, I don't want to know about _that_," Kurt said. "But how's it working with her dads? Weren't they home at some point?"

"They came back in the middle of the night. And they were there at breakfast." Finn grinned. "They did seem pretty uncomfortable."

"And you're happy about that."

"Hey, better them than us," Finn shrugged. "And we're not going to talk ourselves out of going for what we want."

"I would if I could."

"But you can't." Finn looked pointedly at Kurt. "And since you can't, you might as well stop trying to. It's hurting all of us."

"Why are you being so in-your-face with Rachel's fathers, anyway? It's almost like you're trying to get them to stop you."

"We're not. Come on, this is me and Rachel. I'm not exactly subtle, as you've pointed out before, and Rachel's really direct. She wants something, she goes after it _before_ anyone can stop her. It's just.. this is the way things are and they need to get used to it, especially since we want to get married soon. We're being honest about that. If they aren't, that's not our fault."

"Don't you think it's a bit covert, just having a quick simple ceremony? It's almost like you're ashamed of what you're doing."

"Either we're provoking a reaction by being in-your-face, or we're acting ashamed by not, huh? Seriously, dude, pick one. Or none."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Or you're afraid you'll change your minds."

Finn snorted. "We're not changing our minds, this is what we want, we just don't see any point in waiting. I admit I'm a little surprised Rachel doesn't want something bigger, you know, for the drama of it, the whole big wedding center of attention bit. But she's not compromising – the simple approach was her idea."

"Actually that makes sense," Kurt said. "Rachel's plans only seem complicated sometimes, they're usually pretty direct like you said, and she can go ahead with things at a moment's notice once she's made her mind up about what she wants. She's only picky about things that matter to her." Finn nodded in agreement. "And she doesn't want to have a wedding."

"What?" Finn's eyes narrowed, and he rose to his feet. "No, you've got that wrong, Kurt," he said, getting a bit angry. "She wants this. I know you're not on board with it but what do you think you're doing, telling me that!"

"Listen to my words, Finn. She doesn't want to _have a wedding_. The big event, I mean. What she wants is to _marry you_. The wedding itself... well it's not exactly incidental, but it's not her focus. Like when our parents got married, I could plan it very quickly because the point was to get married, not 'have a wedding'. Though it was a very lovely wedding, if I do say so myself."

Finn exhaled, his pulse starting to return to normal. "You could have found a better way of telling me that."

"You're a fine one to talk about word choice."

Finn rolled his eyes. "Hey, you know who you're dealing with here."

"True." Kurt smiled to himself. "Anyway, for Rachel this makes sense. It's not going to rival her performances, and it's not a performance, it's her life. If she was really just all about high drama she probably wouldn't be in love with someone like you in the first place. So much as I would like to help out with planning a big wedding, say in five years or so, that's not what she wants."

Finn smiled softly, thinking about Rachel and what she'd said last night about sometimes feeling as if they were already married. No, she didn't need a fancy traditional wedding, and neither did he. "Why wait five years? Or is that supposed to give me an idea of how big you want to plan it?"

"Come on, Finn, you're too young," Kurt said.

"Says who? I'm old enough to join the army. I'm old enough to vote, I voted for Burt last fall. I'm an adult for everything except drinking, which is weird, and I'm old enough to get married."

"Technically, yes. But you can't say you're prepared. There's still college, getting your life together, figuring yourself out..."

"I don't want to get my life together in a way that doesn't have Rachel in it. And people used to get married at eighteen all the time."

"That's not normal now."

Finn blinked. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

"What?"

"You've never worried about what was 'normal' before. Fashionable, okay, not that that matters to us and you know it, but not normal."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "This is different."

"Why?" Finn asked genuinely, his hostility fading. "People tell us that we can't, that it's wrong and we're too young, but they never say why. They just expect us to believe them."

"People generally take a while to mature into themselves, figure out who they really are. They change a lot between eighteen and twenty-five."

"So we're just supposed to wait and see if we've changed? What if we don't want to change?"

"Everyone does."

"Anyone tell you that about yourself? I don't want to insult you or anything, but anyone ever say your being gay was just a phase and you would grow out of it?" Finn looked at the sudden horror on Kurt's face. "Guess so. That's crap too. Some things... just are. I can't explain it."

"Sometimes you can think something is a certain way and it isn't. And most people have a lot of growing up to do after high school."

"Sure, I get that," Finn said. "And I'm not saying that I'm done growing up, I know there's a lot to come. But always with Rachel, not away from Rachel. I'm not just gonna wait and see if we still love each other later." Finn moved to stand over Kurt and looked down at him. "Look, I know things could have been a lot different. If I hadn't joined Glee, I'd still be a dumb jock scared of not being popular and dating the popular girls because that's what I was supposed to do. And it would have taken college before I'd've been able to break out of that and get to know anyone half as great as Rachel, if I ever could. But you have to understand that 'supposed to' doesn't mean a whole lot to me and Rachel, just like it doesn't mean a whole lot to you. If we went by 'supposed to' I'd be dating cheerleaders I didn't care about and either ignoring or picking on both of you. 'Supposed to' sucks, it's not a good reason for anything."

Kurt looked thoughtful. "I'll give you that," he admitted. "But how do you know that your lives will fit together in seven or eight years when so much can change?"

"You think our lives fit together in high school? Do you remember the last two years?" Finn asked, exasperated. "Our lives fit now only because we want them to, and we work at it because we know it's worth it." He frowned a little. "It seems really cold, what you're saying," he said. "Like I should build my life only for myself and then look around and pick someone to fit in it, like buying furniture or a house or something. Rachel's much more important to me than that. And people change their whole lifetime, it's not just when you're young, so if you don't have someone that you can grow _with_ it won't last anyway."

"That's... surprisingly profound, Finn."

"Thanks." Finn eyed his brother. "I think."

Kurt smiled wryly. "But even considering that, and okay you've got a point there, why do you have to keep rushing ahead? Why can't you just go tell Rachel that you love her and want to spend your life with her, and you're going to work towards that, instead of getting married so soon?"

"You mean aside from the fact that I don't want to leave it at that?"

"Yes."

"And that I don't see a reason why I should, aside from the fits that everyone is having about it?"

Kurt gritted his teeth. "Yes."

"So you want a reason for you, not a reason for me."

"Okay, yes."

Finn sat down and thought for a moment. "What's that thing you've said, about insanity?"

"Aside from this being an example of it?"

Finn glared at him. "No. Like, a definition. One of those funny-but-true things."

Kurt sighed. "_The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result._"

"Yeah, that's it," Finn replied. "Anyway, it's like that."

"You're going to have to explain that. Have you tried not marrying Rachel before?"

"All the time," Finn said, rolling his eyes a little. "I mean I've tried pulling back from Rachel before, and worrying about what other people think of us. When we first went out. I got overwhelmed, by just how _Rachel_ she is, and I thought, hey, hold off a bit, explore some other options, that sort of thing."

"Sounds sensible."

"It did. And it sucked. I pulled back, just 'cause I was scared, really. I hurt her, and everything bad snowballed from that. And I've pulled away from her other times too, or not really shown her how much I love her, and it always hurts us both. We've grown a lot from it, and all the problems we've had have helped me understand how much I love Rachel and need her in my life, but I've learned that now. I had to grow up a lot just to be able to get this far, being with Rachel is really advanced."

Kurt gave a wry smile. "It would be."

"So we've been through all that, and we don't care what people think of us being together, there's never been much support anyway. I know everyone gives us crap for all the PDA, how we make out in the choir room and everything, but when we got back together I promised myself I'd never second-guess myself again about showing Rachel how much I love her, and showing the world that too." Finn chuckled. "Besides, when the whole Internet has seen you make out there's not much point in hiding it. We're embarrassed by the kiss going up on YouTube, especially all the comments, but part of me wants to thank choirgeek69 for making it completely impossible for me to make that particular mistake again." He smiled. "Look, I'm Rachel's guy. I love her and I don't want to be without her, ever. It's not easy once you throw other people in, it never has been, and it's probably never going to be, but I'm going to keep working at it. And it can be so easy when it's only us, not just the physical stuff, she's always been someone I can really talk to, so I've stopped worrying so much about what other people think. Or at least I'm trying to. Caring what other people think about us being together has never worked. So that's insane, like you said."

"I'm not sure that really answered my question," Kurt commented. "And at least most of those other people don't have to witness it on a such a regular basis."

Finn thought about this. "Are you sure you're not just feeling sort of left out?" he asked slowly.

"Just?" Kurt frowned at Finn, who stared back at him. "There's a lot more to it than that. But okay, maybe it is a bit like I'm losing my brother and my best friend, to each other," he admitted.

"Stepbrother," Finn said idly.

Kurt was aghast. "Oh, that makes a big difference to you, does it?"

Finn frowned. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just that, it's not really long-term..." He paused, trying to find better words, as the look on Kurt's face told him that his explanation wasn't helping. "I don't mean it like that either." He took a deep breath, then exhaled. "Look, we're brothers now, and we'll keep on being brothers, don't worry about that, okay? It doesn't matter to me that it's step. But we haven't been brothers very long, and I've been with Rachel longer. I mean, Rachel and I were together when you and I became brothers, and you've been friends with her about that long too."

"I guess so. Though for New York, we've been talking about that for a lot longer than you have."

"But you did kinda know this, going in." Finn paused, nodding as he decided that he'd finally managed to explain things how he felt about them. "Yes, we're a lot more serious now, but it was always going that way. I don't know what you were thinking about how we'd be in New York, maybe you thought I'd be in a college dorm or something, but even if I didn't live with you I'd just be over there all the time. And you're not losing us, either of us. We're really focused on each other right now because of everything that's going on. But you're still family, okay? And since you're friends we're going to be a really close family, and I want that."

"You do?"

"Well, sure, it's cool. We have a great time together, and we're there for each other, and that's not going to change."

"Really? Because it sure doesn't seem like it."

"Right now we're really distracted, so if you need us to be there for you you're going to have to tell us about it, but we'll be there if you do. Both of us. I know Rachel would say the same, and she hates fighting with you. And there'll be less of our drama once we've gotten married."

Kurt laughed at this. "I know you're naïve, Finn, but you have to be kidding about having less drama. You're marrying _Rachel_."

"At least we won't have this particular drama." Finn pulled his chair closer to Kurt. "Look, Kurt, you're part of the family. Our family. Hell, I don't know what either of us would have done without you last year when we were broken up. We're really strong together, the three of us, and that had better not change." He put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Okay, dude?"

Kurt nodded, and smiled. "Yes. Thanks, Finn. Though this doesn't change the fact that I think what you're doing is crazy."

"That's okay, as long as you don't get in the way." Finn exhaled. "So what's going on with you, anyway?"

"Is something going on with me?"

"I just mean, what about your life right now, we've talked a lot about mine. You're prepping for your NYADA audition, right? And how are things with Blaine?"

"Everything's fine," Kurt said, shrugging.

"That didn't sound so fine."

"No, Blaine and I are great," Kurt said, smiling, finally relaxing more. "His eye is all better now and it's so wonderful having him around again. And the silver lining in all of it is that he's no longer talking to Sebastian."

"That's good. You know you can talk to me, uh, if you need to," Finn said. "I know you don't usually like to, but you've done your share of listening to me, more than your share, it works both ways if you want."

"Sure, Finn. Thanks, but – everything's fine."


	7. Chapter 7

After rehearsal, Rachel went off to the Lima Bean for coffee with Kurt and Blaine. As Finn made his way out of the building, he was called back by Mr. Schue.

"Finn, do you have a few minutes? I'd like to talk, if you have some time."

"Ah, okay, sure. I've got an hour before my shift at the tire shop. But I still have to eat."

"I know better than to get between you and food. Come on, we can talk in my office."

Finn nodded and followed his teacher down the hall and into his office to sit down in front of the desk. They looked uncomfortably at each other for a few moments.

Mr. Schue cleared his throat. "Okay, I'm just going to come right out with it. Finn, what are you _doing_?"

_Sitting here_, Finn thought. _Yeah, I know._ "Marrying the person I want to spend the rest of my life with."

"I know you love Rachel, but..." Mr. Schue hesitated.

"Everyone says that. 'I know you love Rachel, but.' Or to her, 'I know you love Finn, but.' But what? But we can't? We can and we're going to."

"Ever think that 'everyone' may be right?"

"They never have been before." Finn shrugged. "And everyone else gets to go on with their own lives, so why do they get to tell us what we should do with ours?"

"They're your family. And they love you."

"Yeah." Finn exhaled. "Too bad that doesn't go as far as wanting to know how I feel about my own life."

"What do you mean?"

"I always get things sprung on me. Done deals. When Mom and Burt decided that she and I were going to move in with Burt and Kurt – I was the last to know, Kurt was already redecorating, and they didn't even really ask me what I thought about it. Yeah they got better about telling us together when they got engaged, and right away, so that's something I guess. But then there's that all that stuff about my dad, and Burt's been planning on me looking after the tire shop while he's in DC, and... I don't know. It just seems like everyone in my life, except for Rachel, just tells me what my life's supposed to be like without even asking me. Quinn was like that too, was she ever."

"Well... do you know what you want to do with your life?"

"It's still my decision. Just because I haven't made it yet doesn't mean they get to make it for me." Finn snorted. "You know, everyone says I'm bad with change, and yeah they're kind of right. But change is bad with me, it always gets thrown at me. Maybe if I could actually see it coming instead of getting blindsided by it I'd deal with it better. I'd have a chance to."

"I think you're better with change than you know – you've dealt with a lot over the last few years, and you always step up when you're needed, more than anyone. But what you're doing is about the most sudden change you can have."

"It's different when it's my idea and my decision. Our decision, mine and Rachel's."

"Your ideas can be rather unusual, Finn."

"Doesn't make them wrong. You're always the one who says we need to be more creative."

"This isn't a question of creativity. You can't really be ready for a big commitment like that."

"We're already committed, Mr. Schue. I don't want to live without her, and she's the same about me. So we make that official."

"You're making it sound awfully simple." Mr. Schue shook his head.

"Isn't it? I know Rachel's complicated, but loving her isn't."

"Look, you grew up really fast two years ago, with all that mess about Quinn and the baby. Are you sure you're not doing more of the same now?"

Finn thought for a moment. "Okay, yes, when I thought Quinn was having my baby and she moved in with us I had to deal with a lot. But if I've grown up fast then I have, I tried going back to being a kid last year and it didn't work. I wasn't that guy any more, and I'm glad I'm not. Rachel's a serious person and I'm serious about her." Finn swallowed. "Yes, a lot of things are going to be hard. But us knowing we want to be together – that isn't one of them."

Mr. Schue frowned. "It takes a whole lot more than just wanting to be together, Finn. Look at me, I married my high school sweetheart and it was a disaster."

"I'm not saying everyone should. But we're not like you were." Finn frowned. "Excuse me for saying so, and I didn't know your wife much, just from when I worked for her and she did help me out a lot with that, but I did kind of get the idea that she was a lot more like Quinn than like Rachel, mapping your life out for you instead of with you. And you waited a few years after high school to get married and it still didn't change anything."

"I guess not. Even with all our history, and my career set up, it turned out that I wasn't who she wanted me to be."

"I'm sure Rachel would never want me to become an accountant. Unless I really wanted to and she thought it would make me happy."

Mr. Schue laughed ruefully. "No. Though you never know what needing money will turn people into."

"Sure, Rachel's used to having money, and she's pretty spoiled when it comes to that. But she knows I've never had much and doesn't care. And she's driven, she really wants a big career herself. I'd still want to be able to provide for her, though. When we have a family."

"You certainly can't now."

"No. But – no." Finn thought for a moment. "We're not planning to change all that up, though. It's not supposed to be all that different than if we don't get married, just we'll also be committed to each other. Officially."

Mr. Schue was very skeptical. "Do you really think your parents are going to let you do that? They can make things very difficult for you if they just kick you out on your own."

"So they just decide to punish us because we're not doing what they want? Because that doesn't sound like they would be the mature ones in this."

"People can react very badly to change, Finn. It's not just you. Much worse than you, actually. And whatever they do, you'll have to deal with it."

"Well right now they say they're behind us. And my mom let Quinn move in when she needed help, at least until we found out the truth about the baby, so she wouldn't completely bail on us."

"They _say_ they're behind you," Mr. Schue responded, stressing the key word.

"Yeah, well..." Finn exhaled. "You're right, we don't know what they're going to do. But we can't not live our lives because we're afraid of that."

"I just don't see how you think this is the right time, that you're remotely prepared. You have so much of your life ahead of you."

"A life I want to spend with Rachel," Finn insisted. "Is it ever really 'the right time'? Does it really matter when love finds you? You were married when you met Ms. Pillsbury, you can't tell me that was 'the right time'."

"No. Of course I was having trouble with my marriage, but -" Mr. Schue looked chastened. "No." He smiled thoughtfully at Finn. "How is it that you see right through things like that?"

Finn shrugged. "Rachel says I should always say what does and doesn't make sense to me because sometimes things really are wrong but I'm the only one who can see that. Because I think about them differently, or something. Less complicated."

"So speaks a woman who knows the man she loves."

Finn smiled. "Yeah. She really gets me, understands me, you know? More than I do myself. It used to scare me, like she could see inside my head, but it's good." He swallowed. "Look, we want to be together, and we know this is right for us. This will be the foundation for everything else. I mean, you see how we are together. More than any other teacher, because we can really be ourselves in the choir room. Do you really think we're just like other dating teenagers?"

"Honestly? Sometimes you seem like a couple of starry-eyed kids blown away by your first real love. And sometimes you seem like an old couple that's been married for forty years, finishing each others' sentences and still unable to keep your hands off each other. But even if you are some sort of exception, and I'm not saying you are, as an educator I am worried about the example it's setting. For other students, they'll see the hearts and flowers but won't know what it took to get you there. And it took a lot."

"We can't worry about that, Mr. Schue. Yeah I want to be a good example, but we have to live our own lives. And it's not like Rachel and I are a couple that people try to follow, most of McKinley doesn't get what we even see in each other, so won't it just be yet another weird thing that those losers in Glee Club did?"

Mr. Schue laughed briefly. "Maybe. But one thing, though, Finn – where are you going to live? And how?"

"Now that we don't know, not for right away," Finn admitted. "Her dads say they're being supportive of the whole thing, us getting married, so we're going to take it from there."

"They're not necessarily that good at following through – this is the third year of Rachel in Glee Club and they've yet to show up to a performance. Or her star turn in _West Side Story_."

"Yeah, I know, for two men who love her so much they sure don't seem to be there for her, they're so busy," Finn said. "Still. We don't need them to be there, we just need them to not get in our way. And not punish Rachel for deciding it's time to live her own life, so we can be there for each other."

"Is it time? Do you even know what your lives are?" Mr. Schue shook his head. "I mean, I understand where you're coming from and your commitment to Rachel, but it still seems like you're trying to run before you can walk. You're still in _high school_. And I know how torn up you were about your dad, so I can't help but think that this is coming from a very confused place."

"Rachel's the clearest thing there is. Just – when I'm with her, the world is... bright."

Mr. Schue stared at Finn. "Do you realize you just quoted from _Funny Girl_?"

"What? No."

"Yes, you did." He laughed. "Come on, Rachel must've made you watch it with her, it's her favorite. And that's a line from her favorite song, the last one."

"Sure, we watch it a lot, well she watches it and I watch her watching it. And a lot of the time we fall asleep on the couch before it's over, she has it memorized anyway." Finn snorted. "Guess there's something to sleep learning, maybe nodding off in class wasn't as bad as I thought."

"You're not embarrassed," Mr. Schue commented.

"Should I be? I meant what I said."

His teacher eyed him speculatively. "She means it too, you know," he said. "About you. She sang that song last year when we were auditioning potential soloists for Nationals. It was just before Jean's funeral and you were still with Quinn. Jesse asked her if she was singing it thinking about anybody, wanting it to be himself of course. She said no. But by the end of it the rest of us knew it was about you."

"Wow." Finn breathed. "I didn't know about that, back then I was afraid she was getting back with Jesse."

"Not a chance. Especially not after that song – Rachel's performances are always moving, but that was..." Mr. Schue shook his head. "A whole new level."

Finn smiled softly. "And still you wonder why we're holding on to _that_ as hard as we can."

"Maybe not," Mr. Schue replied thoughtfully. He shrugged. "I do know the two of you have really grown together. You're unconsciously quoting from _Funny Girl_, she's planning a solo from a metal band – in some ways you're still the Classic Rock jock and Broadway diva, and in other ways you're not, you're better."

"Better together, always. That's love and that's us."

"Yes," Mr. Schue admitted. "But living your lives together, that's not like trading musical tastes. Have you even thought about what sort of lives you want? A family?"

"Sure, we've talked about that. And yes we want a family, if we can."

"Kids?"

"Two or three. Probably in seven to ten years, depending on what works for Rachel, she wants to be able to take a good career break. Certainly two, each of us grew up as an only child and wished we hadn't. It's great having Kurt for a brother now, so we want that for ours. And Rachel wants the kids to go to Temple, which is fine, though we'll still have Christmas." He looked over at his teacher. "Anything else?"

"Diet. She's vegan, you're a carnivore."

"Start with both, then let them choose if they want."

"You've really thought this through," Mr. Schue said slowly, a little stunned.

"Yes."

"What if you can't have kids? That's one of the things that caused a problem for me."

"Then we deal with it together. You can't plan for everything, and thinking that you can just makes it feel worse when you find out you can't."

"Hmph." Mr. Schue looked puzzled. "How do you figure that?"

"'Cause you think things are going to be easy and they're not. Makes the hard things harder because you don't expect to have to deal with them."

His teacher smiled. "That's an interesting insight."

Finn shrugged. "Been there a lot. And I know who I need with me the next time the world throws crap my way, and she'll be there, we'll be there for each other."

"But should you be doing this just to hold onto each other? Getting married is a big step and very hard to undo if things fall apart. Trust me."

"I don't think it's _just_ anything, Mr. Schue," Finn replied. "Look, the way we feel about each other, if things fall apart it's going to be devastating anyway. Rachel's everything to me. And she's told me she already feels committed. So we hold on tighter, it should make it harder for things to fall apart." Finn looked sincerely at his teacher. "We're all in, Mr. Schue. We already were. There's no going back, so we go forward."

"_Alea iacta est._"

"Um, what? Did we learn that in Spanish class?"

Mr. Schue laughed. "Actually it's Latin." He caught Finn's puzzled look. "It means 'the die is cast'. I was reading up on Julius Caesar, preparing something for History class on the Ides of March when he died, and that's what he said when he brought his legions across the river into Roman territory. Invaded, basically, since the army was supposed to stay outside the homeland."

"'The die is cast'," Finn quoted back. "Sounds cool. So what does it mean?"

"That there's no going back."

"That's what I said."

"Yeah." Mr. Schue looked sheepish. "I guess I was mostly talking to myself."

"So I'm like Caesar invading Rome?" Finn looked highly skeptical.

"The allusion's falling apart at that point. Though he was successful, the ordinary people loved him and he made a lot of changes to how things were run."

Finn chuckled. "And he was assassinated. No thanks."

"Yeah." But Mr. Schue sobered and looked over at Finn. "Just be careful, Finn. This is big-deal adult stuff you're doing."

"I know it's big. It's the most important thing. Thanks, though." Finn got up to leave.

Mr. Schue nodded in acknowledgement. "And lay off of Rachel's neck before Regionals, okay? We need her to look her best, and that makeup isn't fooling anyone."

Finn chuckled. "Yeah, I know. It should fade by then."


	8. Chapter 8

Returning home from the Lima Bean, Kurt dropped his bag off in his room, then went down to the kitchen where Carole was cooking dinner.

She looked up as he entered. "Hi Kurt, how was rehearsal?"

"Great," Kurt said. "The mash-up's going very well, best choreography we've ever had. The Warblers don't stand a chance." He exhaled. "Or so I hope."

"It's just the two of us for dinner, Finn's working, so I thought I'd make that chicken stir-fry we both like." Carole turned back to the stove. "Did you have a chance to talk to him?" she asked hesitantly.

"Ah, yes, we had a good talk during the break after lunch."

"And?" Carole asked hopefully.

"And we've patched things up, we're good," Kurt replied. "Sworn brothers forever and all that."

Carole sighed in relief. "Oh that's great, honey," she said. "I know that's very important to both of you." She stirred for a bit longer, then turned the stove off and served the stir-fry onto two plates. "There's enough left for Finn to have some later once he gets in from work," she said, handing a plate to Kurt.

"Surely he ate before work?"

"I'm sure he did, but you know Finn. And I'd rather he ate that than get more junk food." They sat down at the set table and started to eat.

After a few mouthfuls, Carole swallowed and looked over at Kurt. "Did you talk to him some more about the engagement?"

"Yes, not that it helped much." Kurt exhaled, poking at his food. "I've tried to talk some sense into him, but it's not working, it's even backfiring. He's got his _Finn_ way of looking at things, and the more I talk about it with him the more sure he seems to be that he's right."

Carole smiled softly. "Stubborn as always. What sort of things has he been saying?"

"Scarily, his arguments _are_ right. Missing the point entirely, of course, but completely right in what he says. Nobody's ever really understood how Finn and Rachel work as a couple, but they do, so they've basically closed themselves off from listening to other people's opinions of their relationship. Certainly they've had unsolicited negative opinions thrown at them regularly from the beginning, and a lot of interference, so it's an understandable reaction. And since the only problems they see are based on how other people are acting, they're ignoring them. They want to be together so they're going to be, whether anyone supports them or not."

"I've always supported them together, Rachel's been really good for Finn."

"You're probably the only one who has. Even I didn't, at the beginning, though that was a long time ago and I was confused at the time." Kurt frowned. "I've always been on their side since then, and they know it, they've both thanked me for it, but they're still not listening to me now."

"So he told you that? About ignoring what other people say?"

"Yes. We talked for a while. But every time, just when I think I'm getting somewhere, some tangent comes up and it goes nowhere. If he wasn't Finn, I'd think he was doing it on purpose, but the conversation just keeps going off track. And he doesn't really want to talk about it, of course, so he's quite happy to follow things off track, and that's the end of it."

"Have you talked to Rachel?"

"Rachel's worse, she just refuses to discuss it at all. In her case the subject change is quite deliberate, she starts talking about something else and that's that." Kurt sighed. "But we can't make them listen, and Finn's clearly frustrated about how much other people tell him how to live his life, so now what?"

"I don't know. Your dad thinks we should just refuse to have anything to do with them getting married, try to forbid it, though really we can't. But Finn's my son, my baby boy. He was practically the only light in my life for sixteen years, and I don't want to risk driving him away now." Carole exhaled, pulling herself together. "I'm going to ask Rachel to come over for dinner tomorrow," she stated. "Not to talk about the wedding, or anything like that, just for us to spend time together normally. I need them to understand that they can trust me, really they can. I wasn't that much older when I married Christopher, after all. And I can't lose my boy over something like this, no matter what they do."


	9. Chapter 9

Rachel had just returned to her room after dinner when her phone rang. Finn's home number – but he was at work, and he usually used his cell anyway. She answered it.

"Hello, Rachel, it's Carole," came Finn's Mom's voice, sounding friendly.

"Hello Carole, it's good to hear from you," Rachel replied.

"Are you available to come over for dinner tomorrow night? Your dinner party on Tuesday was all very nice, but I thought it would be good to get together more casually, like we usually do, eat, hang out, nothing special except the company. Just you, and since Burt had to leave for DC it'll just be us and the boys."

_'The boys'. Was she trying to suggest Finn's youth?_ Rachel closed her eyes. _She says it all the time,_ she told herself. _In twenty years she'll probably still call Finn and Kurt 'the boys'. This scheme is making me second-guess everything._

"Rachel?"

"Sorry, yes, that would be lovely," Rachel said.

"Great. I have a new vegan recipe that I'd like to try, if you don't mind being a guinea pig," Carole said.

"Ah, sure. Thank you."

"Wonderful. Dinner at five-thirty, and I'm sure Finn will insist on picking you up. He's still at the shop, so I'll let him know about dinner as soon as he gets back."

"I'll see you tomorrow then. Thank you for asking me, I look forward to it." They hung up.

_That sounded good, I could use an evening of just keeping company with them,_ Rachel thought. She went to her closet and started looking through her dresses to pick out something to wear. There were many options, but she quickly settled on a dark blue dress with flowers that looked pretty. Finn had been quite attentive the last time she'd worn this to school.

That decision made, Rachel looked at her open and rather full closet and frowned. She was used to how much her dads indulged her, closetsful of clothes, dance and vocal classes, everything she asked for, she got. As long as it was something material, or praise; as she'd grown up and become more of her own person, they'd taken advantage of being able to leave her alone more and more, and now she couldn't help but wonder if that was also because they were having a hard time dealing with her as an independent person. She knew they sincerely loved her, but she was starting to feel like a Barbie doll, complete with all the accessories. And while Barbie had Ken, almost everything else was only for her, and Ken was just yet another accessory. It was _Barbie's_ Dream Home, not _Barbie and Ken's_. That was fun to play with, but it wasn't a life, and Finn was so much more than anyone's accessory. Rachel sat on her bed, tears springing to her eyes as she wondered if she was so used to being spoiled by her dads and living in the little world they'd made for her that she wouldn't be able to live her own life with the man she loved. Have a place together that they could really share.

She sighed and wiped the tears from her eyes, suddenly decisive. _I don't need all these things_, she thought. _I did prom on a budget last year, and it would have been a perfect night if I'd been with Finn._ She stood up and went to her closet again. _What things do I really need? If I had to go away for a month, and could only pack one suitcase like most people do, what would I bring as essential?_ Planning was definitely one of her skills, and it seemed to be a useful exercise for paring her life down to something that could really be shared with Finn. _Does it really matter what else I have if I don't have Finn?_

From her memories his voice came, singing: _**The spaces in between, leave room for you and I to grow.**_ Rachel calmed. _We can do this_, she thought. _I don't need things, I only thought I did, like at Christmas – Finn's star is so much better than the things I wanted. Thought I wanted. And that's so __**Finn**__ too, he's the thing I never knew I needed until I found him._ She nodded her head, feeling determined. _**We can do this.**_

"Honey?" Hiram's voice at the door interrupted her.

"Yes Dad?"

"I was just wondering if you and your Glee friends are available on Monday after school."

Rachel wiped her eyes, not wanting him to see that she'd been crying. "Maybe," she replied. "Everything's very busy because Regionals are coming up, it's very important that we rehearse."

"After rehearsal then."

"I think so," she said. "Except for Finn, he's working. Why?"

Hiram came into her room and sat on the bed in front of her. "Oh, I've talked to Madama Renata, you remember her from when you used to get costumes for tap competitions? She has some time this week to work on the bridesmaids' dresses, if you can get the girls in for a fitting. I've already retrieved the costume measurements for everyone from your Mr. Schuester, he's been so helpful, so we should be able to get suits for the boys without any difficulty. Even if Finn's too busy for it."

Rachel was puzzled. _What are they up to now?_ "I'll talk to them. But the wedding isn't until May, we have plenty of time," she said.

"Oh, that's fine, we just want to get the ball rolling," Hiram replied. "You wouldn't want to leave something this important to the last minute, would you? And Madama Renata has time now, and is available at a substantial discount since she's trying to get established in the bridal market, so I'm sure you and Finn can make the decisions about how you want your wedding soon so we can take advantage of this. You do still like hot pink, right?"

"I suppose..."

"Well you should decide now, why don't you discuss it with Finn? And make sure you take a look through those magazines we gave you and pick out a wedding dress. Don't ask him about that, of course." He smiled at her. "Traditional white for purity, I assume?"

Rachel looked at her open closet door, not really seeing the clothes, then back at her father. "I look good in white," she blurted out.

"Of course you do, honey. And nobody worries about whether it's accurate so you shouldn't either. I'm sure tongues are already a-wagging anyway."

She closed her eyes, counted to five, then opened them again on her father's still-smiling face. "Actually the 'purity' association is modern," she said, defensively slipping into 'lecture' mode. "Rich brides used to show off their wealth in their dress, and white was expensive and single-use. That's all changed now, of course. But I do look very good in white, Finn has even said so, and I wouldn't want to disappoint him."

"Excellent, honey. So just pick out a design and you'll be ready to walk down the aisle before you know it. Something nicely fitted around the waist perhaps, to quiet the inevitable gossips." Hiram rose from the bed, and gave Rachel a half-hug and a kiss on the cheek as he walked to the door. "We'll have all this ready in no time, sweetie, just tell us what you and Finn decide."

Rachel sat back down on her bed once her father had left. _So they're accelerating,_ she thought. _In for a penny, in for a pound. There's probably some sort of sports metaphor for this, I wonder if Finn would know._ She looked at her clock; Finn wouldn't be off work until nine but he should be calling her later. Hopefully his interest in wedding colors was as limited as his interest in fashion, so they could dispense with her fathers' latest ploy. And as for a white wedding dress – Finn had mentioned how well white set off her skin, and he rarely said anything about clothes. Besides, the 'purity' comment was obviously supposed to make her self-conscious about it, as well as the crack about a fitted waist. Naturally more people than just Noah would be assuming that they were getting married because she was pregnant, but she didn't care as long as it didn't bother Finn. She could well imagine the whispers, 'I hope it's really his this time' or something like that. She shook her head, quelling those thoughts. _That's what they want us to be afraid of_, she told herself. _They want us to think we can't handle being together, getting married. But they're wrong._

Just before ten o'clock, Rachel was lying on her bed reading but perked up when she heard her phone ring - _I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer._ That sound meant _Finn_.

"Hello gorgeous," she said, channelling Barbra as she answered it.

"Hey beautiful, how's your evening?"

"Better now."

"Oh?"

"It's good to hear your voice." She sighed. "My dad talked to me about the wedding again, he wants us to pick out colors."

"Uh... I don't care about colors."

"That's what I thought."

"Is that a problem?" Finn sounded concerned.

"No, it means you don't care about the color of clothes that you're not even wearing," Rachel replied. "You're not Kurt. And I don't really care that much either. Pink should work for most of the girls, and I've always liked it, so we can go with that."

"Like the pink color you write with in those cute notes you leave for me?"

"Yes." Rachel giggled.

"Sure, that's good, reminds me of you. What's the rush though?"

"I think they're trying to scare us by making our wedding more real. And they've been watching too many of those 'bridezilla' shows where couples fight over insignificant wedding details."

"Oh." Pause. "But I like our wedding becoming more real."

"So do I."

"And insignificant means not significant, so why should we fight about that?"

"The wedding industry is set up to make brides and grooms care about tiny little details so that they'll pay more to get them right."

"Whatever." She could almost hear his eyes roll.

"Exactly. You do need to pick out a suit, though. They're trying to get everyone fitted on Monday after rehearsal but you're working."

"Monday? That is fast."

"Yes. As I said, they're trying to scare us."

"It gets the preparation over with, we can just make a few decisions and then we're done. Okay, I can drop by the suit place at lunch instead if you tell me where. Anything you'd like to see me in?"

"Something classic, you always look so sharp in a suit so there's no need to get fancy. And a long tie, it works better with your height."

"We've got bow ties again for Regionals."

"It keeps Blaine happy."

"Yeah." Finn laughed. "Look, Rach, I don't want to dump the decisions on you, but the only thing I'm going to care about when it comes to our wedding will be the beautiful girl next to me. Can you pick out the rest? Maybe with Kurt, I know he'd like to be involved even though he thinks we're nuts, and he's been feeling a bit left out. Just don't let him make you worry about the details, there's no need to stress out over what anything looks like or make it complicated."

"Sure, I can do that."

"Just one more thing."

"Yes, Finn?"

"You do know how great I think you look in white, right? It makes your skin look really hot, all glowing and sexy. Even more than usual."

Rachel blushed. "I think you might have mentioned it."

"Just wouldn't want you to forget. I do notice some clothes, as long as you're the one wearing them."

She giggled. "Oh, please tell me as often as you like."

"Will do. So, my mom says you're coming for dinner tomorrow night?"

"Yes, that's okay with you, right?"

"Oh yes, more than okay."

"It would be so nice just to have an ordinary dinner without all this drama."

"I'll see what we can do. I'll come get you at five, all right?"

"Sure. I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too. Good night, I love you."

"I love you too." At that they hung up.

Rachel worked through her evening ritual, getting showered and washing her face, and then dressed for bed. Instead of calling her fathers to bring her tea, though, she put a robe on and went down to make it herself.

Hiram and LeRoy were sitting in the living room, both reading. They looked up as she entered.

"Ready for your tea, sweetheart?" LeRoy asked.

"I thought I'd make it myself," she replied. "And some for you too, if you'd like. We can have it here."_ I don't need to be babied. I fend for myself all the time when they're away._

The two men exchanged a look. "Ah, okay," LeRoy said. "That's fine, princess."

"Yes, Rahela. Some honey in mine, if you'd be so kind," Hiram requested.

"Of course."

Rachel made the tea, putting honey in one of them, and brought the cups out to the living room for her dads. She sat down with hers, sipped it, and sighed contentedly. "This is nice," she said. "Sitting around together." _Like adults._

"It's very good, honey," Hiram said. "Very good honey, honey," he smiled.

Rachel laughed a little. _We can be like this, it can work,_ she thought. _They just need to realize things are changing._

LeRoy sipped his tea, looking lost in thought.

"Carole called earlier, she wants me to come over for dinner tomorrow," Rachel said. "Just for the evening, it's a school night after all."

"That's fine, Rachel," LeRoy said.

"Yes, I said I'd go. She and I really didn't get much chance to interact the other night. It'll just be four of us, since Burt had to head back to DC already. And Carole has always been so important to Finn." She sipped her tea again. "Oh, and I talked to Finn, and pink will be fine. For the bridesmaids' dresses. It should suit all of them reasonably well. I'll be in white, of course, and I'll pick out a design in the next few days."

"And the suit fitting? Including Finn, if he can spare the time?" Hiram asked.

"He can stop by the rental place over lunch on Monday, so it won't interfere with his job. He's such a hard worker," Rachel continued, simpering, deliberately laying it on a little thickly, "and he's mastered it so quickly, he's very capable. And he should look at suits before the others so he can make the decision himself. I'm sure he'll look good in whatever he picks out."

_Dad, Daddy – please don't think that what you're doing is ever going to work. I love Finn and we're getting married._ She thought about just saying that. But who knows what they'd try next if she did.


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: I'm so thrilled by how well this story is being received! Thank you for all the reviews, favorites, and alerts.  
>This story should be finished in the next few days; I'm trying to get it done and posted before the next new episode blows it into AU-dom.<br>_

_Disclaimer: still don't own Glee, too bad for me._

* * *

><p>Finn arrived at Rachel's at five, and pulled in to see Rachel leaving her house rapidly. She ran down the path and hopped into the truck so quickly that he didn't even have time to hold the door for her, much less turn the engine off. Her face looked tight, but she smiled at him and was clearly in a hurry to leave, so he drove off.<p>

After a few blocks she spoke. "Finn, can you pull over, please?"

Finn was confused. "Sure." He found an empty parking lot and pulled in.

As soon as the truck was in park, Rachel took her seat belt off and slid over to him. She reached up and kissed him, slipping her tongue into his mouth hungrily. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her back. As their mouths parted, she pressed more closely to him and buried her head into his neck.

"Hey..." Finn drew circles on her back. "Are you okay, Rach?"

"I am now," she replied, muffled. She tilted her head to look up at him and sighed. "I could not get out of there fast enough. And I really wanted that kiss and didn't want you to think it was for show."

"Any time." He held her close, comforting her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I -" she looked down and swallowed. "I don't think they're ever going to be okay with us," she said sadly. "I know they like you, so that's not it, what they don't like is that I'm in love with you."

Finn continued to stroke her back. "But that's the best part." Rachel blushed. "What brought this on?"

"They were pushing music all day," she said. "Usually that's fine, I love a day of singing and so do they, but this time there always seemed to be an edge to it. Career, stardom, the world will be at your feet and everyone will be in awe of your voice, you just need to concentrate on it. That sort of thing."

"I can't say I disagree, you're amazing," Finn said quietly.

"But you want me to have a life too, with you. They don't. They just -" her voice broke. "It was keep-your-eye-on-your-goals, all day, even when I begged off singing to save my voice for Regionals they kept talking about my future, what roles I should play, that sort of thing. And it's not like any of it is new, that focus and plan for me has always been there, I just see it so differently now."

"What do you mean?" Finn prompted.

"You remember my old life plan, the one where I'm twenty-five with a shelf full of awards before I let anyone touch me?" Rachel asked, her voice bitter.

"The one we're really glad we're not doing? Yes, I remember."

"Ever wonder where I got ideas like that from?" Her eyes, full of tears, looked up into his.

"_Oh._"

"Yes. And it's just so frustrating. And unexpected, even though that attitude has always really been there I didn't see it before, not until they started their stupid scheming against us. Now everything they say sounds like it has two meanings, always some hidden manipulation, and it's driving me mad. Last night my dad, who after all is gay, was making sly comments about whether I was _pure_ enough to wear white at our wedding. I mean, really! He said not to worry about it, but of course he brought it up to get me to worry about it."

"Are you worried about it? Because, um, it was me."

"Of course I'm not worried about it, nobody cares about things like that any more. I just never expected my gay pro-human-rights dads to have such an annoying _double standard_." She frowned, and sniffled back tears. "I know they love me, they do, and they want me to have everything. But I didn't realize before that I define 'everything' so differently than they do." She slumped against Finn, nestled under his arm, and he stroked her shoulder. "That's better," she said softly, breathing deeply. They sat like that for a while.

"Rach?"

"Yes, Finn?"

"I've been thinking... I don't like how stressed you're getting about all this."

Rachel looked up at him. "Do you think we should stop? Call off the engagement, at least publicly?" She looked hurt.

"No," Finn said hurriedly. "No, no. Unless you want to..."

"No." Rachel shook her head vehemently.

"Good. No, the opposite actually. They're pushing this so fast, and you're getting so stressed with them, I just want to get you out of there." He met her eyes. "Maybe we could move it up," he said. "Get married sooner, after all the plans will all be made soon. Push them out in the open, and then we can be together, like we want to be."

"Wow." Rachel sat up and looked at Finn. "That's really big."

"I know," Finn said. "But – this is hurting you. _They're hurting you,_ even if they don't mean to. And I can't sit by and let them hurt you."

"Or wait while they do one thing after another to try to break us up," she mused quietly.

"Yeah."

"I don't know, Finn," Rachel said, her eyes downcast. "They're still my dads, I love them and I know they love me, they're just being really stupid. They've given me so much, I can't just walk away. And there's still months of school left, this is certainly not how I thought it would be."

"Does it matter as long as it's us?" Finn asked quietly.

"No." Rachel wiped her eyes, and looked up at Finn with a small smile. "No, it doesn't. But I'm going to have to think about this. Give me some time, okay?"

"Sure, take all the time you need." He kissed her. "Just remember I love you."

"Always. And I love you too." Rachel settled back into her seat and put her seat belt back on. She sighed. "It's going to be so good to have just a quiet ordinary dinner at your place," she said.

"Yes." Finn started the truck again and pulled back onto the road.

* * *

><p>Once they arrived at Finn's, Rachel headed into the kitchen to see if Carole needed help, while Finn went to talk to Kurt.<p>

"Hey Kurt, we're back," Finn said.

"Rachel's with your mom?"

"Yes." Finn exhaled. "Look, Kurt, can you make sure not to talk about the engagement, wedding, or anything like that tonight? Rachel's getting really stressed, her dads are on her about it all the time and she needs a break. Please."

Kurt looked at his stepbrother's pleading face. "Sure," he nodded. "It's not like I don't think you'd be great together, you know," he went on. "I just think you're too young to make it work, and I worry what will happen if you don't take care of your own life goals. But I don't want to hurt either of you, and I hope you know that."

"Yeah. Yes, I do know that," Finn said. "Rachel too." He exhaled. "You can go back to sniping about it tomorrow, if the topic comes up, and it will since the planning's on full, but please not tonight."

"That's fine. Your mom wanted it that way too, I think. Tonight, I mean. Not the sniping, particularly."

Finn smiled. "Great."

"Dinner in ten, boys," Carole called up from downstairs.

"Great, Mom, thanks," Finn called back. He nodded at Kurt. "Better head down."

They found Rachel and Carole in the kitchen, talking about vegan cuisine. Dinner was quiet and comfortable, with Regionals the main subject; Rachel had convinced Carole that she and Burt should definitely come, since it was being held at McKinley and Burt would be back from DC.

"I don't know why more parents don't come to these things," Rachel commented. "But it would be wonderful if you could."

"You were incredible in _West Side Story_ and I look forward to seeing more," Carole said. "And I've never seen you and Finn perform together, just in rehearsal. And on YouTube, of course."

"You should. No insult meant to Blaine," Rachel said, her eyes flicking to Kurt and back, "but I'm always better with Finn. It just - feels better with him." She smiled at Finn, who blushed.

"More vegan lasagna?" he asked Rachel, trying to cover up his embarrassment.

"Certainly, thank you."

After dinner, they sat and watched TV together for a while, with Rachel and Finn curled up together on the couch. Like Carole and Kurt, Rachel loved "Once Upon a Time", so they watched the latest episode while filling Finn in on background during the breaks. Finn looked a little sheepish when David's dilemma between his blonde wife and the brunette he loved was explained, especially with Kurt insisting that the decision was obvious. Ultimately Finn agreed, of course, that the man should follow his heart.

Once the show was over, the others excused themselves – Kurt to call Blaine, and Carole to clean up the kitchen.

"This 'other life' stuff makes you think," Finn mused.

"What, do you think we were together in another life before this?" Rachel asked teasingly.

"I don't really believe in that stuff, though it'd be cool to have another past, to find out I used to be a knight or something," Finn replied. "I'm having enough trouble with my one life, I'd hate to have to grow up all over again. But I can get why it would be appealing to be able to keep going." He stroked Rachel's hair, looking into her eyes. "I can understand a single lifetime not being long enough. And any lives I have, I hope I'm with you."

Rachel breathed softly, looking into his eyes, so moved by what he'd just said.

"Finn..." she whispered, and their mouths met in a tender kiss.

Half an hour later, Carole returned to the living room to see Kurt reading on the couch.

"Where did the others go?" she asked.

"They're up in Finn's room. Studying."

"That's what they call it these days, is it?" Carole laughed. Still, she should probably keep an eye on the young lovebirds, so she quietly made her way upstairs and along the hallway.

Through the gap in Finn's mostly closed door, she saw the pair of them: her son sitting with his back to his bed, a workbook of some sort against his bent knees, and Rachel lying on the bed, stretched out on her stomach, her head over Finn's right shoulder and her left arm draped around his left shoulder. They were smiling, laughing, by turns pointing at the book, so relaxed and happy.

Carole was biased, since she always loved to see Finn happy, but she thought how the two of them were together right then was about one of the cutest things she'd ever seen. So adorable.

_But getting married?_ Her stomach sank. _So young, they couldn't have the slightest clue what they were getting themselves in for. Though did anyone?_

She couldn't encourage this. But if they went ahead, she had to support them. They'd need it.

As for what they were doing now, their faces were close together and they spoke softly, but she could still make out some of it.

"So how did you know this one?" Rachel asked.

"Kurt uses it to describe me when he finds I've gotten to the fridge first. He gets pretty mad when he's hungry." Finn laughed. "And that one below reminds me of you talking about singing." He turned his head and kissed her.

"And the next?" Rachel continued, smiling.

"Ah, that one I don't really know," he admitted. "But it sounds like an adjective, not sure why, so I went with that."

Carole realized they were looking at Finn's SAT prep book, so _studying_ wasn't a euphemism after all. Rachel really did lift Finn up so much.

"Use what you've got," Rachel agreed. "You're probably going off of the ending, and they're very useful. It's a good strategy, I'm impressed."

"How impressed?" Finn asked, his voice deepening as he turned more towards Rachel, their eyes locking.

Carole turned away as _adorable_ rapidly progressed to _passionate_. She went hurriedly back downstairs.

Back in Finn's room, Finn and Rachel were coming up for air. "Just two left," Rachel insisted, giving Finn a light push back to his book.

"Okay," Finn said, pouting a little. He looked back at the bottom of the page. "Well the last one is process of elimination – it's not any of the others, and it does sound a bit like that one. And the second last one," he continued, smiling, "that describes one of my favorite things."

"Hmm?"

"If we're done I can show you."

"Oh, we're done," she smiled.

"Good." Finn closed the book and left it on the floor, getting up to lie beside Rachel on his bed. "So," he said huskily, tracing his hand over her face and down to her neck, "there's this part right here..." he trailed his fingertips over the side of her throat, following them with his lips. Rachel moaned softly. "So many words describe you, baby," he murmured as her hand wound into his hair. "I don't know what I'd do without you to use them for. I hope I never have to find out."

They made out passionately for a while, then cuddled quietly together, Rachel nestled against Finn's side with his arm around her.

"When's Sam getting back?" Rachel asked eventually.

"Late, I think. He wanted to have dinner with his family before heading back. We'll catch him up on the choreo during the week but he really needed the time away."

"He's still torn up about Mercedes, huh?"

"Yeah. He doesn't talk about it much but I know the signs."

"He should just wait, be her friend," Rachel suggested. "She really does care about him, she just needs to figure herself out first."

"I think he will. I've told him he should if he's serious, it's worth it."

"From your experience of it working on me?"

Finn chuckled. "More from my experience of it working on _me_." He pulled Rachel closer. "We were out of sync for a while, one of us had to wait for the other to catch up. And I'm so glad you did."

"You did it too, before."

"Oh yeah," Finn commented softly. "Well, like I said, totally worth it." They lay together for a while longer, deeply content.

Eventually Finn looked at the clock. Almost nine. "I should run you home soon," he murmured. "Not that I want to, I wish we could just stay like this."

"I know." Rachel sighed. "But I should go." Neither moved.

"Are you going to be all right, going back home with your dads?" Finn asked quietly.

"I will be," Rachel said, sitting up, Finn rising to join her. "It's not like anything's changed, really, it's more that I know their attitudes now. And I know they still love me, they'd never knowingly hurt me. Maybe I was just being overdramatic, earlier."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up for how you feel," Finn said. "Trust me, I know what it's like when something you always thought was true turns out to be wrong." He took her hand. "I'm always here. Just call if you need me." Rachel nodded, and they kissed.

* * *

><p>Finn drove Rachel home, parking his truck in front of her house. She slid over to him for a goodnight kiss.<p>

"So you're sure you're going to be all right?" Finn asked.

"As sure as I can be," Rachel replied. "This evening has been wonderful, I really needed to relax. And your mom is so great. I don't think she's really part of my dads' plan any more, if she was she'd be trying to unsettle me like they are." She exhaled. "I wish they'd give the whole thing up."

"We could just tell them we know what they're up to," Finn mused, wrapping his arm around her.

"And then what will they try?" Rachel sighed. "Maybe you're right and we should just get it over with."

"'Just get it over with?' Way to kill all the romance," Finn said, stiffening. "We should only get married if we really want to."

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean how that sounded, I guess it's my turn to put my foot in my mouth." She nestled into him and stroked his hand until he relaxed again. "I love you so very much," she murmured. "And it would be my very great honor, and pleasure, to be your wife."

"That's more like it." Finn smiled and pulled her up for another kiss. "Though I know I'm rubbing off on you when you start saying dumb things like that." They laughed together. "Just say the word and I'm yours. Officially."

* * *

><p>On Finn's return to his house, he went to thank his mother for how well the evening had gone.<p>

"Tonight was great, Mom, thanks so much. Rachel's been really stressed and needed a relaxing evening, and this was perfect."

"I'm glad you both had a good time," Carole responded. "But why has she had so much stress?"

"I think her dads aren't dealing with change well. I know it's a big change, the biggest, but she's having a hard time knowing where it all stands with them. Tonight, with us, that was much easier on her." Finn kept his words deliberately vague.

"Change is hard," she agreed, "and some people handle it better than others. Some have more experience with change and how inevitable some of it is, like children growing up. And some things don't change." She looked up at him. "It's still hard to believe sometimes," she went on, waving her hand over her gigantic son, "that you used to be a tiny little thing that I carried under my heart." She met his eyes. "But you've always been _in_ my heart, from the moment I knew you existed. That's never changed and it never will." Finn blushed and hugged his mom.

* * *

><p>Kurt had just finished his moisturizing routine for the night and was returning to his room when he was met by Finn, carrying two mugs of warm milk. Finn handed one to Kurt, who sipped it and smiled.<p>

"Thanks for dinner, it was good," Finn said. "It's nice to be able to put the engagement drama aside for a while and just be a family. As much as we can with your dad away in DC. And Rachel really needed to relax, so thanks again."

"That's fine, and thank you for letting me know she needed that, I'm always happy to help if I can." He entered his room and motioned to Finn to sit with him. "Need to talk?"

"Yeah, I guess, though you first," Finn said, sitting.

"Maybe not tonight. I am finding out a bit about what it's like to be you, though, so I may have further questions some other time."

"What it's like to be me?" Finn was puzzled. "Meaning what?" He looked at Kurt, who refused to react. "In love? You have Blaine, so you know about that already." He paused, but got no response. "Clueless? Doesn't sound like you. Confused about your future? Not until your NYADA audition at least." Kurt was starting to smile, so Finn continued. "Clumsy? No, I've seen you with those sai swords of yours, if you were clumsy like me you'd be missing a few limbs by now, or at least some toes." Finn chuckled and sipped his milk.

Kurt laughed at Finn's list. "In demand."

"Really?" Finn eyed his stepbrother. "Well take it from me, stay with the one you love. It's only good to have options if you actually want them and they don't screw anything else up. Which they do."

"Yes, I got that by observation," Kurt said. "And I plan to follow it. I'd rather not have the option, actually."

Finn shrugged. "Learn from my mistakes, there's enough to share. And I don't even know if I'm 'in demand' now, 'cause it doesn't matter, there's only one person I want."

"You're lucky."

"Don't I know it." Finn yawned. "It has its problems though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I guess this is a really weird question, and out of left field, but: what do gay dudes think about girls?"

"You mean, do we? Speaking as a representative of 'gay dudes' everywhere?" Kurt raised his eyebrows at Finn.

"Okay, I guess it is dumb," Finn frowned.

"No, it's okay," Kurt said. "Just don't extrapolate too much from what I say, I'm not a 'spokesgay' or anything like that. Everyone's different, that would be like me thinking that you and Puck are the same just because you're both straight. Where's this coming from, anyway?"

"Just..." Finn exhaled. "This is about Rachel's dads. They've built this weird little world for the three of them, for her, and the other night they did a really good job of trying to show me that that's the only place for her, you know? And now they're torquing it all up, trying to drive us apart and stop us from wanting to get married. I just wonder if they see her as real, as - as a woman, and if they even know how to handle that because it's not something they've ever had to relate to before. Straight guys at least try to relate to women, even if we're not that good at it a lot of the time, but we're motivated. We think about what women want because we want to be that, or we're confused and trying to figure out what's going on with them. Gay guys wouldn't need to do that, they – you, I guess – don't need to try to understand women. Not in the same way."

"I suppose. Though I've usually found it easier to relate to girls than to straight guys."

"Okay, 'cause you like more of the same things. But how much do you really understand about straight guys and girls?"

Kurt frowned. "Yes, gay men know that straight men like girls instead of boys. We hear about it all the time."

"Yes, I know that," Finn said, waving Kurt off. "But hearing about something isn't the same as understanding it. And do gay guys get that girls like guys? I guess I don't mean you, so you can't, uh, extrapolate like you said, 'cause I know you and Rachel talk about stuff like that."

"We don't. At least not for a long time." Kurt gave Finn a fixed look. "Because for her that would be talking about you, and I don't need to hear about how much you make her toes curl or whatever."

Finn gave a small smile. "Yeah, okay, but that's because I'm your brother, not in general."

"Yes."

"It's just that – I know for straight guys, well, me and some others I know, but I guess it's mostly the same for others, for straight guys at first we don't really get that girls have, like, desires. Like we do. 'Course for me I started by dating Quinn, who I'm still not sure really did, and Santana likes girls so that wasn't a good example either, but being with Rachel -" He cut himself off at the look of fear on Kurt's face. "No details, I promise. But I know she wants me and I like that she wants me. How she wants me." he smiled softly. "But I wouldn't get that if I wasn't with her, and she's really open about how she feels, so I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether gay dudes sometimes never understand it, that girls want guys back and that's normal for them, if they're straight I mean. 'Cause her dads, I'm not sure they do, at least not really understand it instead of it just being something that they've been told. Same with how straight guys like girls, I mean you're told about it but do you really get it since you can't feel it yourself?"

Kurt sat back thoughtfully. "I don't know, Finn," he finally admitted. "Certainly for me it's been easier understanding that straight girls like guys. I like guys, I can relate to liking guys, and I can talk to girls about our mutual appreciation for guys, at least ones that aren't family members. But while I know that straight guys like girls, I can't relate to it at all, not innately, and especially not when the biology comes into play, so to speak." He caught Finn's puzzled look. "I mean, I don't feel anything like that myself, deep down, and the body parts aren't things I find attractive. And I must admit that I did spend a bit of time in denial that other guys really did, just needed to grow up I guess." He leaned forward and nodded at his brother. "I'm actually impressed that you understand girls liking guys, given that that isn't something that you relate to."

Finn grinned sheepishly. "Well, I shouldn't 'extrapolate' like you said. Mostly what I'm starting to get is how I turn Rachel on and how much she loves me. But I know you don't want to hear about that."

"No I most certainly do not," Kurt said, shaking his head. "Though even then I think you may be ahead of a lot of straight guys in actually giving a damn about how you make your girl feel."

"Now that's lame if it's true. And they're missing out, I mean I feel so connected to Rachel when I'm with her, making her feel good makes me feel good, I can't not get it." Finn shook his head. "So lame."

"Yes. But to answer your original question, or at least your original concern – yes, it's possible that Rachel's dads are completely mystified by the feelings of their daughter, and are also mystified by what this guy who's in love with their daughter feels. But," Kurt went on, putting his hand up for Finn to let him finish, "that's probably not because they're gay. They're _her dads_. Parents have a hard time with kids growing up, you're just not as used to it because your mom was shocked into it two years ago when she thought she was about to be a grandmother."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess. Works out the same either way."

"You should have heard how my dad handled the 'sex talk'. Or better not, it was embarrassing enough for both of us without there being a witness." Kurt shuddered. "Why are you wondering, anyway?"

"They're just..." Finn trailed off, a little uncertain about how much to tell Kurt, since Kurt had ratted them out before. "They're playing games. Like that overnight set-up that they planned the other night. It doesn't seem like they realize how much we could get hurt by what they're doing. I mean, they put a lot of work into making us feel like our worlds were totally incompatible, and I don't think they understand what they're doing to Rachel, they're just trying to get her to do what they want for her, but that doesn't include me so it's really stressing her out." He exhaled. "It's like they've somehow managed to raise this incredible woman without realizing that that's what she is. And they're letting us go ahead with setting up the wedding, pushing it faster, but I don't think they're really behind it, so it could turn into a total mess, and she's going to be so hurt if they try anything."

"Hmm." Kurt looked carefully at Finn. "Just be careful, Finn."

"I will. I have to take care of Rachel and take care of myself. Everything else... it's just something to watch out for."


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: this scene is inspired by the "On My Way" preview, which includes a taste of something like this that didn't make it into the episode. - HLine_

* * *

><p>Late Monday afternoon at Madama Renata's Costume and Bridal, the Glee girls were trying on their bridesmaid dresses, simple sleeveless knee-length dresses in a bright pink (very wearable and versatile, Madama said, and the color would work for a wide variety of skin tones). Rachel, meanwhile, tried on a few different sample wedding gowns.<p>

She exited the dressing room stall after another dress change to see Quinn alone in front of the dressing room mirror. "I can't believe this," Quinn muttered, scowling as she looked at herself in the pink dress.

"Do you not like the dress, Quinn? I think you look beautiful."

"No, the dress is lovely, Rachel. That's not it." Quinn turned, frowning. "I just can't believe you're going through with this engagement, this wedding, after all we talked about."

"What do you mean?"

"You can't marry _Finn Hudson_." She said the name with a tone of disgust.

Rachel was stunned. "Is this jealousy, Quinn? Still?"

"No it's not." Quinn exhaled. "I know what I said, last year, about my getting Finn and you getting your heart broken, and I was trying to get you to give up on him because I felt threatened by you, but it wasn't just that. What I said about you was true. You really are too good for Lima, Rachel. You're too talented. Finn belongs here. When I had Finn in my plans, those were plans where I was going to live out my life here, and I supposed he was good enough for that. You can't stay here, it'd kill you. You belong on stage, on Broadway, and Finn would just hold you back, he couldn't fit into the kind of life you need. I meant it then, and it's still true now."

"I remember that conversation too, Quinn," Rachel said defensively. "How could I not, I wrote my solo because of that conversation. And I sang it for Finn. Yes I was heartbroken then, but the truth of that moment remains, that my love for Finn is what inspires me, what turns me into a true artist."

"So you're a true artist, fine. Get what you can from the moment and move on. Otherwise, you're going to throw away your future by marrying some stupid Lima loser, Rachel."

Rachel's eyes flashed. "Finn's not stupid, Quinn, and he's not a loser. He never was and he never will be. He's... a little easily led, he's very trusting. But that's one of the things I love most about him, his open heart, how much love he has to give. And you're wrong about him holding me back. He supports me, he fills me up with all that love he has and I feel so unstoppable. Like I can fly."

Quinn laughed mockingly. "Like the song."

"Yes," Rachel replied sincerely.

"Oh come on, Rachel, I've dated Finn too. Finn can be very supportive, when he can be persuaded to do the right things, but so are a lot of other people. He's not that good, and he's never going to be that successful. He'll drag you down, you're just so blinded by love that you can't see this."

Rachel pursed her lips, determined. "That's not true, Quinn. You don't think I should marry Finn because you don't think Finn's worth it. Well he is worth it for me, so I suppose it's just as well that he isn't for you. And if Finn wasn't able to make use of his talents when he was with you, perhaps it's because you never tried to help him to, and never really let him love you."

"So your wasting your life is somehow my fault? _I'm_ the one who wasn't good enough for _Finn_?"

"It's not a question of 'good enough', it's about 'right'," Rachel insisted. "I'm not going to waste my life, being with Finn isn't a waste, I'm so happy with him. But you shouldn't waste yours either. You've got such a bright future ahead of you too, Quinn. You're going to Yale, that's one of the best colleges in the world, and you're going to be amazing there, I can see it. But accomplishments aren't enough, you need to open your heart too. Let people know who you really are inside, the wonderful parts and the flaws, and know them in return. Cherish people for themselves, not just what they can do for you or what role you see them playing in your life." She swallowed. "Be willing to love, with all you are. It's frightening, even terrifying, and risky, but it's so worth it when you're with the right person. Because even if loving Finn means I never set foot on a Broadway stage again – I can't regret loving Finn. And when I'm struggling to get there, or when I make it, having him with me will only make it easier, the journey better, and any success sweeter. Because I get to share it all with him."

Rachel went to the dressing room door, then turned to look back at a stunned Quinn. "I'm glad you like the dress, Quinn, and I hope you'll feel that you can come to our wedding. It would mean a lot to me if you could. Please keep it anyway, you look very lovely in it and I'm sure there will be many suitable parties at Yale. You can never have too many dresses." With that, she left.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: We're back into actual episode material now, from "On My Way".__  
>Disclaimer: Don't own Glee, its characters, or the events discussed that occur in the actual show.<em>

* * *

><p>Wednesday came, and the week was going well for Finn, very well indeed so far. He'd picked out a simple suit on Monday, plain black like he knew Rachel liked him in, and for a change the sleeves were actually long enough, the advantage of going to a good rental place. He'd even picked out a couple of alternatives since they couldn't reserve for a specific date yet. Apparently the costumer had the dresses done, except for Rachel's since she hadn't quite decided, but then they'd be all ready. Sure, Rachel hadn't gotten back to him yet about whether she wanted to get married soon instead of waiting until May, but that was okay; school and rehearsal for Regionals were keeping Rachel from spending too much time at home, and she was a lot more relaxed, especially after Sunday night. <em>Way to take care of my girl,<em> he thought proudly. And he was pretty sure he'd killed his SAT rewrite that morning, thanks to all of the prep work he'd done and how much he'd learned from Rachel. He'd helped her, she'd helped him, and he felt they were really proving themselves as a couple and getting ready to build their life together. _This is what people who belong together can do for each other._ His future was looking brighter, the wedding was mostly planned, and even though they might wait until May, he was sure that once Rachel had her dress in her closet she'd realize it was time to wear it.

Then he walked into Glee, eager to see her again, and found it all going to hell.

Sebastian was blackmailing Rachel, with a disgusting picture that had Finn's face on someone else's naked body, and he said he'd upload it and others like it widely. Finn's rep would be trashed forever, wherever you went you couldn't escape the Internet, he knew that. Sebastian's demand was that Rachel drop out of Regionals; 24 hours, now down to 21, was all she had to decide if performing was more important to her than Finn's reputation.

Finn wanted to beat Sebastian's face to a pulp – it'd be hard for him to sing then, wouldn't it? But they'd be disqualified. And Finn was legally an adult, so assaulting the son of a State's Attorney was probably not a good idea, not matter how much the smarmy asshole deserved it. Threatened humiliation was against the show choir rules too, so the Warblers could be disqualified, but that wouldn't stop Sebastian in time, and whoever was running Dalton Academy this year seemed to have thrown out their 'zero tolerance for bullying' policy.

Would Rachel perform, with him under this threat? _Stupid question, of course she would. Didn't even seem to think about it._

And there he went again, storming out. Maybe he'd caught it from Rachel, he seemed to do it more than she did these days, he just couldn't contain his anger and had to get out of there. They were running the girls' number for most of that rehearsal anyway, they didn't need him much. He wondered if Rachel did either, really.

Finn calmed down a lot that evening, but he still felt hurt at Rachel's reaction, that she'd talked about how important her performing at Regionals was to her future. Yes, their future, together, but it seemed to come down to her anyway, as if her part of their joint future was more important than his.

He'd also been disappointed that her first instinct hadn't been to protect him. Of course she'd seen the picture earlier so maybe it had been, but then it must have worn off. How did she think he was going to take it? He'd been spending days talking to everyone who asked about how much he and Rachel loved each other and how they'd always be there for each other, and then this happened, and all she could say was how of course she was going to perform, that they needed her to perform.

Of course two-thirds of the performance was built around Rachel. It would be a disaster for everyone to lose her, even if Blaine could sub in another solo or something. Still, couldn't she have at least thought about it? About him? She knew he had trouble with that sort of thing. _Couldn't we have talked it over as a couple and made the decision together?_ Not that he'd been in a talking mood, far from it.

More than anything it was physically painful to have felt that they were so perfectly in sync, and then have that connection broken. _I thought she understood me._

Finn knew he shouldn't care so much about his reputation. But the clock was ticking away the hours until noon tomorrow when those pictures would be posted, and that pressure didn't help. He'd heard that employers routinely check the Internet when they hire, and he'd been glad that the worst that was up about him was the kiss from Nationals. But it had almost a hundred thousand views and a few hundred comments (jealous, complimentary, obscene, you name it people said it) and it had shown him just how powerful that sort of thing could be. If that picture went up it'd be on his back forever, there would be nothing he'd be able to do to get rid of it. He'd also heard about the Streisand Effect, how the more you tried to get rid of something the more it got around 'cause everyone wanted to know what you were trying to hide. Rachel had been disappointed that it was based on something bad about her idol, when she'd heard the term she'd wanted it to be about becoming a star or something like that. But it worked, and once that picture was out, any efforts to have it taken down would just make more people look at it. At him. At his face pasted onto _that. _So Sebastian's threat felt like yet another door closing on him, cutting him off from his future. But he never wanted to hold Rachel back, either; that was what had her dads so worried. _Maybe I just wish she'd want to hold herself back for me so I could tell her not to. I don't know._

His phone rang: _Oh girl, you stand by me._ But did she?

"Hey," he answered.

"I love you," Rachel stated.

Finn smiled a little. _Right to the point._ "I love you too. We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"

"Definitely. And you know they can be disqualified for this -"

"Tomorrow," Finn insisted, interrupting her. She paused, waiting for him to say something. _It still hurts that we're not on the same page right now_, he thought. "I just... don't want to risk going to sleep mad. I love you."

"I love you. I wish I was there with you."

"Me too. 'night, Rach."

"Goodnight."


	13. Chapter 13

In the morning Finn went into the kitchen to get breakfast, surprised to see only his mother there; he usually lost the best seat at the table to his early-rising stepbrother. "Where's Kurt?" he asked Carole. "I heard him getting up." He got alarmed at the stricken look on his mother's face. "What's wrong?"

"It's Dave Karofsky," Carole said.

"What, is he bugging Kurt again? 'Cause if he is -" Finn fumed.

"No, he – he tried to kill himself. Yesterday."

Finn sank onto a stool in the kitchen. "What?" He gaped at his mother.

"Apparently someone from his school saw him talking to Kurt at Breadstix, on Valentine's Day, and started a rumor that he was gay. More than a rumor, actually, complete and total harassment. He couldn't take it. Luckily his father found him in time."

"How's Kurt?"

"He's very upset. Naturally."

"Nothing more than that?"

They were interrupted by the rattle of the front door.

"I'm heading off early," Kurt called out. Finn bolted to the hall to try to get him before he left.

"Hey, Kurt, I just heard, how -" But Kurt was gone.

Finn returned to the kitchen. "Does he blame himself?" he asked his mom.

"I hope not," Carole answered. "But obviously there was a lot more going on than he ever talked about." She walked over to the stool where her son sat. "Finn," she said, looking at him seriously and putting her hand on his shoulder, "I hope you know that you can always talk to me, about anything. Anything that's bothering you, or problems you're having trouble dealing with – you can always come to me."

"I know, Mom."

"I know you're growing up and trying to build a life for yourself with Rachel, and you're worried about what the future holds for you. But no matter what, you can always talk to me, I'll always support you. Even in twenty years. I'll always be your Mom."

"Sure." Finn hugged her, but his mind was still reeling at what Karofsky had done. "Same here, you know, Mom," he said. "If you ever need anything."

"Sure thing, kiddo." She hugged him back.

* * *

><p>Rachel, meanwhile, wanted to be sick when she read the messages about Karofsky. People were so cruel. Yes, Karofsky had been a bully, one of the worst last year, but he'd reformed only to fall victim himself. Because someone had seen him talking to Kurt, who was known to be gay, like it was catching or something. Assumptions like that had made it so much harder for gay kids, not only were they harassed themselves but also ostracized because others were scared the harassment would shift to them. She knew it was one of the reasons she'd had basically no friends when she'd been younger, parents didn't want their kid playing with the daughter of 'those gays'. And Kurt had had a lot of trouble as well, it had taken a while for many of their friends in Glee Club to be willing to be friends with him outside of Glee Club, the stigma was powerful. Even Finn had had trouble with that. Especially Finn, at times.<p>

_Finn._ The harassment that Karofsky had been a victim of, all over Facebook – it was the same sort of thing that Sebastian had threatened Finn with. She knew Finn had trouble dealing with that sort of thing, his self-image was quite fragile. And he'd had a hard time with so much this year, his shattered image of his dad, losing his college football dreams – _it's all over for me_, he'd cried out to her. But it wasn't over, it couldn't be, not for her Finn. Once upon a time she'd stupidly wished that she could be the only good thing in his life. It still wasn't true, but what if he thought it was? And how they'd argued yesterday over Sebastian's threat... Rachel sank onto her bed and cried. For Karofsky, for Kurt, for all the other bullying victims out there, even for her younger friendless self who had taken refuge in dreams of stardom, and especially for her sweet strong yet fragile Finn who she hadn't done enough to support.

She dried her tears, washed her face, and hurriedly got dressed for school. She needed to see Finn, hold him in her arms, feel that he was there.

* * *

><p>Finn drove slowly to school, his mind still trying to process the news about Karofsky. He'd been another kid used to being popular who didn't know how to deal with being on the receiving side of bullying, and Finn felt like an ass for having been so insecure, again, about how others saw him. Karofsky shouldn't have, no-one should, even with the "I'd kill myself" the others had thrown around yesterday Finn couldn't understand how anyone could feel so bad they'd want to end it all. But Finn had been reeling from a much less vicious smear than what Karofsky was having to go through, and he did understand what it felt like to think you didn't have much of a future. Finn shook his head at how foolish he'd been, reminding himself: <em>Caring so much about what other people think has never worked.<em> And to have suggested that Rachel not sing, for him – he'd never want her to do that. Not really, not when he knew it was what she'd always lived for. And especially not after the other night, when she'd told him so passionately about how much he inspired her performances. He'd rather have that, between them, and be known to the rest of the world as 'Mr. Rachel Berry', than be what stood in her way. And she inspired him too so he'd be able to be much more than that, as long as he had her.

If he was good enough for her. If she'd still have him after he'd tried to hold her back yesterday, and made her think that he wasn't strong enough to handle the pressure. Sure he could call her, but – he had to see her, reassure her that no matter what he'd never do something like that, that only her opinion mattered to him. He hurried to her locker.

When Rachel told him she wanted to get married right away, that life was too short to wait to be together, he wanted to shout it from the roof. They could handle this, together. They would. For a while he even forgot about their parents' crappy plan and that the wedding might blow up in their faces, though even that was better dealt with sooner rather than later. They kissed, and held each other, and he felt them snap back into sync, connected. All was well again.

And she was going to sing – she'd said she wouldn't and he told her to go ahead, kind of like he'd wanted all along, so they were good there. The way she looked at him, he felt nobody else in the world should ever matter anyway.

Santana brought the news an hour later that Sebastian had backed off. Seems the asshole had a conscience after all, and Karofsky's suicide attempt had given everyone a wake-up call about bullying. Sebastian had sworn that he'd destroyed the pictures and wanted a fair contest. Despite still being angry with the jerkface, Finn had liked the friendly vibe at last year's Regionals between the two clubs, both cheering each other on, and he'd like to have that again if they could. They'd fight it out on the stage and be adults about the whole thing.

Besides, he'd seen that competitive glint in Rachel's eyes – Sebastian and the Warblers were going to be toast.

Everything that had been so good Wednesday morning, and so broken Wednesday afternoon, was even better on Thursday. Finn almost had whiplash from the mood swings. But his relationship with Rachel had always been like that, he realized, every time they'd pulled apart they'd come back together stronger than ever. One step back, two steps forward, and the next step was for good. On Saturday they'd win Regionals, and then get married, no more waiting.

* * *

><p>That afternoon, as she came home, Rachel was met at the door by both her dads. She was surprised – they weren't usually home that early.<p>

"We heard about that boy, Karofsky," LeRoy said, giving her a hug. "He went to McKinley last year, didn't he? You must have known him. It's so sad what still goes on, all the poor bullied kids." He passed her onto Hiram for another hug.

"Yes, I knew him," Rachel replied, sitting down in their living room. "As much as you can know someone who bullies you and your friends; he was the one who drove Kurt away last year."

"He was a bully?" LeRoy shook his head. "He must have been so tormented inside."

"I don't know, I didn't know him aside from that. He was on the football team so Finn knew him, but only through the team. He was popular though, he was Junior Prom King last year. Then he transferred, I don't know why. Kurt always refuses to talk about any of it."

"And his poor father, finding him... at least it was in time," Hiram said. He sat next to her and took her hand. "You know, sweetie, if you ever felt you needed anything, or any help, you can talk to us. I know you haven't had it easy with other kids at school either."

"It's gotten a lot better. Finn's a very effective shield."

"It's unfortunate that you need a shield at all. They just don't take bullying seriously at these schools," Hiram said. "Burt should look into that, in Congress," he continued, nodding to LeRoy. "If anyone could speak on that, it would be Burt. Lead some sort of initiative."

"I know he's going to," Rachel said. "Kurt wouldn't have it any other way."

"Life's so short, princess," LeRoy said. "So short. We're going to make sure we stick around this weekend and go to your competition, and really we feel just awful about how many we've missed. We don't want to miss any more of your life. Our work can wait, there's so little time remaining before you go off to college."

"I don't want to miss any more of my life either," Rachel replied. "So..." she looked from one man to the other, and smiled hopefully at them. "Finn and I talked today, and we want to get married right away," she said. "You're right, life is so short. I know I've found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, and we want to start that as soon as we can. You just never know how long you have left. We don't want to waste any of it."

"Really?" Hiram looked like a deer in the headlights. "When were you thinking of doing this, honey?"

"Saturday, after Regionals," she stated. "It's so lucky that you got us to arrange everything early, now we can go ahead with all of it. Not that it would matter, we don't care what we're wearing, we just want to get married and be together."

Rachel barely noticed how stunned her fathers were; all she could think about was Finn, and how empty her life would be without him. Though he'd assured her that he'd never consider suicide, she had been scared by how he'd recoiled from Sebastian's threatened smear, and how he'd always been sensitive to the same accusations that had felled Karofsky. He needed her believing in him, just as she needed him, she was sure of that. And she didn't want to be without him for one moment more than she had to.

She raced up to her room and called Finn, eager to tell him the news.

"I've talked to my dads, and they're on board with Saturday," she said. "For the wedding. Our wedding."

"That's great!" Finn enthused. "But... wait. Really on board, or trying-to-mess-with-our-heads pretend on board?"

"Oh." Rachel thought for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted. "They seemed very sincere and supportive, and they were so rattled by the news about Karofsky. They were telling me how short life was, how they'll always be there for me, all that. I really felt how much they love me."

"Yeah, we're getting a lot of that today, everyone's saying how spooked their parents are. Sam's still on his phone to his family in Kentucky, I think they've been on for at least half an hour already."

"How's your mom?"

"She's always been supportive, but I got an extra helping of it this morning," he said. "And Burt's back early from DC, trying to talk to Kurt. Not sure he's succeeding, Kurt's really torn up." He swallowed. "I don't know why he didn't tell us what was going on before," he said. "He's been keeping this inside for a long time, I guess."

"He wouldn't have wanted to out Karofsky," Rachel said.

"Even when he was being bullied out of the school?"

"Kurt's always held himself to a really high standard. His sanctimonious streak can be a little much at times, but he's not hypocritical about it. If anything he's even pickier when it comes to himself. He wouldn't have wanted to cause that kind of pain, especially since he knows what it's like."

"Yeah, I can understand that," Finn said. "I never liked the guy, but I don't know how those teammates of Dave's can live with themselves right now." He groaned. "Wait, I didn't mean to put it like that, that's totally inappropriate. God, there's too many cliches that talk about suicide, it's horrible. It's not something to joke about."

"It's just a turn of phrase."

"I know, but it's a really crappy one. Okay, I don't know how they can sleep at night." He exhaled. "It's hard to imagine someone, anyone, finding life so hopeless, though. To try to kill yourself, directly, or... even indirectly."

"Are you thinking about your dad?" Rachel asked quietly.

"Yeah. I mean, he didn't actually kill himself, but – he pushed himself that way, from what my mom said. He bailed on us and on life just as much as if he had done it deliberately. He gave up hope."

"Are you okay?"

"I think so. But you have to know, I would never do that, Rachel," he said insistently. "I'd never do that to you, or to any family we had, never. No matter what happens, or how I feel, even if my life tanks again, I could never hurt you like that."

"I couldn't either. I love you."

"I love you," Finn responded. "I wish..." he trailed off.

"What do you wish?"

"I wish I could hold you, make all the crap in the world just go away," Finn said. "Like on Sunday, only always. I mean the world would still be there, but we'd have that whenever we needed it. Us. I know we do a lot of things that feel really great, and I love those too, but I think holding you is my favorite thing ever."

"You're very good at it," Rachel said. She sighed. "I wish we were doing that right now."

"Me too." Finn paused. "Wait, this is dumb, we're talking like we're thousands of miles apart or something," he said. "I'll be right over, we need to talk to your dads anyway."

Finn met her downstairs fifteen minutes later, and immediately wrapped Rachel in his arms. "How's that?" he asked quietly.

"Wonderful," Rachel murmured. The sound of a throat clearing alerted them to the presence of Rachel's fathers, and they broke apart.

"Finn, our Rachel tells us you knew that poor boy," Hiram said.

"Yes, he was part of our offensive line before he transferred," Finn said. "Football. I didn't really know him though, not as a person. But we're all shocked, the idea that someone our age could feel that hopeless as to try to end it all..." he shook his head. "Only a few months away from graduation."

"Speaking of a few months before graduation -" Leroy said. "Rachel tells us that you want to get married right away."

"Yes," Finn said, a little tentatively. He looked down at Rachel. "Just – with everything that's been going on, we don't want to wait any longer," he said. "We want to start living our lives, together."

"And where would you live those lives?" LeRoy asked.

"Well, temporarily, we thought we could split our time between both places," Rachel said. "That way each of us has a chance to learn to accommodate the other. Of course it would just be for a few months, until we move to New York."

"Well Saturday is soon, no doubt about that," Hiram stated. "Can you get it worked out in time?"

"I've booked the last slot on Saturday with the Justice of the Peace, and filled out the license application," Finn said. "We can file it tomorrow morning. Since Rachel's still only seventeen, we need you both to formally approve."

"Ah, both of us?" Hiram asked, sneaking a glance at LeRoy.

"Yes, the rules say both parents, so we need both of you to come to the courthouse tomorrow when we get the license."

"Oh Finn, it's so adorable that you think you need us both," Hiram said. "Isn't that sweet of him, LeRoy?"

Finn smiled awkwardly, trying to cover up his uncomfortableness with Hiram's choice of words. "But you're her parents." He looked at Rachel. "Right?"

"Finn, the great reactionary state of Ohio does not allow two men to be listed as parents on a birth certificate," LeRoy explained. "Only one of us is legally Rachel's father."

_Oh. Hadn't thought about that._ "That's kind of dumb. I mean, you're both her dads." He saw Rachel smile encouragingly at him. "But wait a minute, does that mean we need to talk to Ms. Corcoran? That doesn't seem right." _Or possible._ He tightened his arm around Rachel as he felt her shiver at the mention of her birth mother.

"No, she has no parental rights," LeRoy said. "One of us is Rachel's legal father and the other one has alternate guardian status. Legally Rachel only has one parent, one of us."

"And I don't actually know which," Rachel said. "They're both my dads in every way that matters, so I've never wanted to know, just like I've never wanted to find out which one of them is my biological father."

"But we knew this would end sometime, princess," LeRoy said. "I'll get your birth certificate." He nodded and went downstairs.

"So, the moment of truth has arrived," Hiram said spookily.

"It's strange," Rachel agreed. "I know it doesn't make any difference, it's just weird to be finding out. Like this."

"You okay?" Finn asked her. She nodded.

"So who do you think it is, Finn?" Hiram asked. "Which of us do you think we decided should be Rachel's legal father?"

Finn looked carefully at Rachel, but she didn't seem to be annoyed at the question, so he thought about it for a few moments. "Which of you did she look more like, as a baby?" he asked.

"Aha, I see what you're thinking," Hiram said. "And we might have done that, might have picked the one she looked more like."

"I was thinking the one less like, actually, to balance it out," Finn explained. "From what she's told me, you've always tried to keep things equal." He looked down at Rachel, who had been listening to this with a small smile on her face.

"Very good! He's smarter than he looks, Rahela, very wise of you to notice that in him," Hiram enthused.

"Dad!" Rachel protested.

"No, he's right, that was what we decided to do. Except then we couldn't decide which of us you looked more like, and they needed a decision right away or you wouldn't have any parent at all, so we filled out the form twice and picked one at random. Let fate decide." As Hiram talked, LeRoy returned to the room, holding an envelope. "And here is what fate decided. The envelope please, LeRoy."

Rachel took the proffered envelope and looked at it with trepidation. "I don't really want to know," she said. "But I guess it's time."

"Well, if you want to get married, then yes," said Hiram.

"It's okay, Rach," Finn said quietly, rubbing her shoulder. "It's just paperwork, it doesn't change how you feel."

Rachel flashed a smile at him and took out her certificate. She took a look at it, and nodded. "You're right, it doesn't change a thing." She looked at her dads. "Please, both of you come tomorrow when we get our license. It doesn't seem right to only have one of you."

* * *

><p>Shortly after nine the next morning, two couples left the courthouse downtown: Finn and Rachel rushing off late to school, and Hiram and LeRoy lingering behind.<p>

Finn and Rachel were smiling giddily as they walked hand-in-hand to Finn's truck.

"That's the last piece," Rachel said. "Everything's ready. I was a little scared when we started talking about needing their consent, but it's done."

"We still have to win Regionals," Finn said, rubbing her hand with his thumb.

"I wasn't serious about that," Rachel said, smiling. "But if that's what it takes for us to be together, we'll do it." She laughed. "Besides, right now my idea of a fair sing-off against Sebastian involves me singing and him cowering in fear. I'm glad he's reforming, but he doesn't deserve to win after what he did."

"Yeah. I have a hard time hating anybody right now though, I'm too happy."

"Me too." She paused. "Still going to wipe the floor with him. Vocally."

"I know."

"And I'm so happy our families are all coming to the competition," Rachel went on. "It's actually feeling like they're supportive. For real."

"Yeah. I hope so. But surely if they didn't want us to get married, your dad wouldn't have signed." Finn frowned a little. "Of course it would just delay things until December if they refused." He shook his head, confused as to what the Berry men were up to. Maybe nothing, not anymore. Karofsky's suicide attempt had shocked a lot of people into realizing how important family was.

"It's really happening, we're really getting married," Rachel said happily.

"'The die is cast'," Finn stated.

Rachel stared at him, smiling in shock. "Did you just quote Suetonius?"

"Mr. Schue said it was Caesar."

"Well, Suetonius supposedly quoting Caesar," Rachel qualified. "Records kept by historical writers are potentially unreliable." She looked up at him, dimpling, and brought their linked hands closer to her. "You have hidden depths, Mr. Hudson," she said. "I look forward to exploring them."

"All yours," he replied softly. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

Behind them, Hiram and LeRoy were substantially less happy.

"I still don't understand why you signed," Hiram told his husband. "We could have put a stop to the whole thing right now."

"We've been through this," LeRoy replied. "If we actually stop her, legally, that just puts it off until her birthday. She needs to give up this crazy idea entirely. And now it's real, one hundred percent real, she can't help but realize that this isn't the way her life is supposed to go."

"Are you quite sure about that?"

"A quickie wedding in high school, instead of the celebration and adoration we raised her to expect? She'll see the difference. Either tonight when we get things ready, or tomorrow. Once she's up on that stage she'll know where her destiny calls her, and it isn't to Finn Hudson's bed. She won't go through with it, he'll be hurt and angry, and that'll be the end of it."

"Well you'd better be right. Because Finn has the license, and by the end of tomorrow he could have our little princess too."


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: Going into the future now. It's almost done - just one chapter and the epilogue left. But there will be a small spinoff.  
>Much thanks for all the enthusiastic feedback, it makes the writing so worthwhile. -HLine<em>

* * *

><p>High in the side box of the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion at McKinley, Finn looked down at Rachel performing the hell out of her solo. He was glad that Mr. Schue had decided to put the boys up here; their teacher liked to make use of the theater space, but as far as Finn was concerned the key was that he got a great view of his girl, his wife-to-be, as she shone like the star she was, singing essentially about them. Down below him their parents were already on their feet, Rachel's dads emotional at how incredible their daughter was. Finn was having a hard time holding back the emotion himself, but settled for just gazing at her, awestruck.<p>

Then Rachel looked up at him and paused, meeting his eyes with a look of such love she seemed about to literally catch fire from within. He returned the look, smiling, sending love back to her through all the space between them, and her performance level climbed again. Her voice soared, imbued with passion. He'd never seen her more beautiful, or heard her voice so powerful, so connecting with the music.

_Here's to us._

And Finn felt himself close to exploding from the love he bore for his amazing, incredible, powerful, loving woman. Filled to bursting with the love that she was sending him along their tether. The theme for Regionals was 'Inspiration'. "You are my inspiration," she'd told him, and right now more than ever he felt that, and how she was his too. _Nothing can compare to her, and nothing can stop us when we're together._

_Two hours to go, and then forever._

* * *

><p>Finn paced in the hall outside the courtroom, his heart hammering. Time was running out for their wedding, but Quinn still hadn't arrived, and Rachel wanted to wait for her if they could. Their parents were in a group talking to each other. <em>Up to something, maybe, Burt didn't sound too happy last night. Hopefully they're confused enough to not get in our way. Either way we'll know soon.<em> He led the guys in, and they went over to where Rachel was waiting with Kurt and the girls.

"It's now or never." _Well, not __**never,**__ it'll never be __**never**__. Just one of those motivational expressions. 'Now or not today' doesn't have the same ring to it. 'Now or we can elope before graduation' sounds clumsy too but it is an option._

Quinn was on her way, apparently. Finn didn't really understand why Rachel was still so keen to have Quinn's presence and approval – sure, Quinn had once been the queen bee whose approval everyone wanted, but that was a long time ago, and Rachel was so much better than Quinn, as a person, as everything, that you couldn't even do the comparison. _And I should know, I tried._ Still, it was important to Rachel, and it would be good to have the whole club there. Even Coach Sylvester had shown up, in a tracksuit that kind of matched the outfits they'd worn winning Regionals, so she looked supportive for a change. More so than their stressed parents.

And Rachel was breathtaking. Yeah he knew the whole "don't see the bride" superstition, but screw it, nothing about this was normal anyway, they'd danced together earlier so this was backwards, and she was so beautiful. And the way her eyes shone when she looked at him, he wanted to see that look forever. Sixty years from now they'd have grandkids and great-grandkids, and he'd show everyone their wedding picture so they'd know what perfection looked like, and hopefully they'd see the same happiness between them then. He'd work at it.

Five minutes left. Quinn was just going to have to meet them later; there was no way he was letting her get between him and Rachel again, even accidentally, and the worry about what their parents might do was killing him. _In five minutes we'll either be married or we'll know where we stand. Maybe both._ The wedding party filed into the courtroom, and Finn took Rachel's hand, stepping in front of the bench with her.

"So, are you ready?" the justice of the peace, Judge Williamson, asked, tension filling the room.

Suddenly Hiram Berry dropped to the floor and started twitching, drawing everyone's attention with a strangled cry.

"Dad!" Rachel looked concerned, but stayed holding Finn's hand as the courtroom staff moved to check on her father. "What's happening?"

"Oh, he's just faking it," Carole said dismissively.

"Carole!" Burt interjected.

"No, Burt, I've heard enough from everyone on how this should be handled. Finn's _my_ son and I'm not going to do something stupid that's just going to hurt him."

"What's going on?" Finn asked his mother, frowning. _Talk to us, Mom. Please. _

"Honey, we're worried, that's all," Carole said, stepping forward to him. "You're so young, and this is all happening so fast. You've only been engaged for a few weeks." Behind her, Hiram Berry had shaken off the concerned staff and risen to his feet, his pretend fit over.

"We're not going to change what we want, Mom," Finn replied. "Rachel and I want to spend our lives together and we're going to do that."

"That's great, really," she protested. "But you're still in high school, and you haven't even figured out a stable place to live. Would it be so bad to wait a bit longer?"

"If you recall, the accelerated timeline wasn't originally our idea," Rachel put in, looking from Carole to Finn and over to Hiram and LeRoy.

"Yeah, okay, that was a stupid idea, but so is this, you can't get married," Burt said, stepping forward to take Carole's arm, but she shook him off. "What? Look, yeah, Finn's an adult, technically, but he's still living under our roof."

"Yes, o_ur_ roof, Burt. Yours _and_ mine." Carole flashed a hard look at her husband.

"Don't fight, please," Finn said, not liking what he saw between his mother and stepfather. "We didn't like it when you were trying to get us to, and we don't want you to fight with each other either, not about this."

"I told you it wasn't going to work," Hiram said, glaring down at LeRoy, who frowned.

"Dad, Daddy, you too," Rachel said. "It doesn't matter who came up with your stupid reverse psychology scheme, you were all part of it."

"Not that I want to intrude on this interesting family tableau, but we need to move on," Judge Williamson said from his position at the front of the chamber. "Your booked time is expiring, and we're closing for the day; we can't afford overtime for the staff. Do you want to get married now or not?"

Finn gave Rachel an inquisitive look, and smiled at the love in her eyes. Their hands gripped tightly, and he pulled her to him. "Do you want to deal with this first?" he asked quietly.

Rachel nodded, smiling at him, a few tears coming to her eyes. She kissed him. "Just paperwork, remember?" she whispered.

"Yeah." He kissed her back and sighed, then turned to the judge. "We can wait."

"Yes," Rachel affirmed. She looked up at the judge. "There are obviously some important issues to be looked into with our families," she told him. "At this time we'd rather try to work them out first." She looked back at her dads. "But it's going to happen," she insisted to them. "And I'm very disappointed in you for how you've been trying to manipulate us and for your attitude to Finn and his place in my life."

"In that case, can you please clear the chamber," the judge said.

"Certainly," Rachel said, retrieving their license from the clerk. Once more hand-in-hand with Finn, she walked decisively to the back of the room, shooing the others before her.

They all reassembled outside, the McKinley students and teachers present standing back in a few small groups, covertly watching while giving the family some space. Rachel and Finn stood close together, their hands linked tightly, as they confronted their parents. Carole tried to approach Finn, but was dissuaded by her son's firm demeanor.

"So what made you think you couldn't talk to us about your concerns?" Rachel asked pointedly, glaring at her fathers. "Or that we'd be better off if we broke up over this?"

"Look, sweetie," LeRoy said, stepping forward, "I just don't see where this engagement business is coming from. You've always dreamed of making it big on Broadway, and you're so talented. You were simply amazing on that stage today, the audience was in the palm of your hand. How does this marriage help you with that?"

"The audience? I had an audience of one," Rachel insisted. She looked from her father to Finn, and met his eyes with a heartfelt smile. "Only one. If I was amazing then he's why." She looked back at LeRoy, and frowned. "I'm your daughter, Daddy, not your doll. Of course I want Broadway, but I want a lot more too, a life for _me_, not just to carry out your fantasies. I love Finn, and I know that whatever life I build I want it to be with him. It's my life, and it's my decision, not yours."

"But how will your lives even fit together?" LeRoy was shaken by Rachel's words, but still tried to press his point.

"You just don't think my son is good enough for your daughter, that's it, isn't it?" Carole rounded on LeRoy. Burt stood quietly behind her.

"Finn's a nice boy but Rachel's going to be a big star," LeRoy stated. Hiram frowned, but stayed silent.

"Apparently big stars don't deserve nice boys," Kurt commented acidly to Blaine.

"Sure we do," Blaine replied with a smile, pulling at Kurt's hand. Kurt smiled back and gave him a light kiss.

"Maybe in five years, if he deserves her, but right now she doesn't need to tie herself to something that's just going to hold her back," LeRoy finished.

"Okay, I have heard enough from you," Carole shouted at LeRoy. "Hold her back? My boy is the kindest, most decent young man she could ever hope to get. The big city doesn't make them like that, so if he's not good enough for her she'll never find anyone who is."

"Now this sounds more like a wedding," Sue Sylvester proclaimed with a grin from where she stood in the background. "Don't stop on my account, but I have some hormone treatments that just won't wait." She nodded at the quarrelling parents and walked off.

The argument continued, the parents oblivious to the fact that Rachel and Finn had stepped away and were standing close together, by the wall.

"She's right, you know," Rachel said softly. "Your mom, about you. And I love you, so much."

"I love you too." Finn smiled at Rachel. "Any regrets at not doing it now?"

"Of course," she said. "We could be married right now. Until we are, there will always be part of me that wishes we were. But that's okay. I wish they were as supportive as they pretended to be, but as things are it would be too much of a mess. You?"

"No, you're right. We have way too much else going on to be able to deal with continually fighting with them over this. Tests, assignments, graduating, getting college figured out, your NYADA audition, preparing for Nationals..." Finn exhaled. "Like you said, it's really just paperwork, it doesn't change how we feel. It's still you and me forever. And someday, hopefully someday soon, we'll get this worked out with them. Or we'll be moving away anyway."

"Yes, we will." She sighed. "We always seem to have a false start," she said, smiling hopefully up at Finn. "At least this time it's not due to either of us."

"And we always get there," Finn affirmed. "And we will."

"We will," she agreed, nodding. "So what do you want to do tomorrow?"

"Elope...?" They laughed together. "Okay, not yet. The license is good for 60 days though, I checked. For tomorrow, I was thinking of taking my beautiful fiancée out on a date, if she's interested."

"Sure," Rachel said with a smile.

"I didn't say to do what."

"To do something with you, obviously," she replied. "That's really all I need to know." She smiled. "We could go bowling to relieve some stress. Isn't that what we do when we don't elope?" Finn laughed. "I suppose it's just as well we're not getting married today, we hadn't even arranged our wedding night," she said. "Without having my dads around the corner."

"Oh did you want one?" Finn teased, leaning down to her.

Rachel pouted. "You wouldn't deprive me of a _proper_ wedding night with my kind, decent, loving, strong..." she put her arm around his neck. "...handsome, charismatic, inspiring..." she stood on her toes, her voice lowering. "...sexy..." she kissed him softly, her lips tugging at his. "...man," she breathed, "would you?" Finn wrapped his arms around her and returned her kiss.

They were interrupted by the click of a camera.

"Brittany, there's no point in taking pictures," Santana said. "They didn't get married."

"But they're here and we're here, and we got all dressed up," Brittany protested. "And they look so cute."

"That's a great idea, Brittany," Finn said. "Let's take some pictures." Rachel gave him a 'what?' look. "Why not?" he murmured to her. "Who knows if everyone will be there when we do get married."

"Okay," Rachel said, letting Finn lead her back into the group of their friends. Their parents, satisfied that the justice of the peace had left so there would be no wedding today, were already going out the door as separate couples, LeRoy and Hiram clearly on the outs with Carole and Burt. "Oh, but what about Quinn? She still isn't here, and she said she was on her way."

"Security's trying to close up," Mr. Schue said, taking the camera from Brittany. "Just move in together and I'll take a few quick pictures." They posed quickly, moving around into a few different positions, smiling for the camera and even goofing off a little.

"Now let's get out of here," Puck said, looking over at the impatient guard. They quickly grabbed their coats and headed outside.

"Hey, don't you have all those finger sandwiches back at your place?" Artie asked.

"Yes, but my dads will be there too," Rachel said. "And while we're certainly going to have to work some things out with them, I really don't want to start right now, we're all far too emotional about it at the moment."

"You, deciding that you're too emotional about something?" Mercedes laughed. "Guess you are growing up." She smiled at Rachel to alleviate the bite of her words. "But we have to celebrate, we won Regionals!" The group cheered, including Rachel and Finn. "We can go to my place and order some pizza. My family is out tonight, otherwise they might be a little freaked out by how we're dressed."

"Great idea, Mercedes," Sam said. The group started to disperse to their various vehicles.

"Yes, I'll just let Quinn know," Rachel said, pulling her phone out again. "I really don't know what's kept her," she commented as she followed Finn to his truck. She sent Quinn a text: _R U OK? We're all going to Mercedes' place, meet us there!_

As Finn helped her into the passenger seat, the phone rang, the ID indicating Quinn's cell. "Quinn, where are you?" Rachel said. Her face fell as she heard the man's voice on the other end and what he said. "Oh my God, Quinn!" Finn, about to start the engine, looked over at her, and was alarmed by the horror on her face.

"What is it, Rach?"

Rachel waved him off, listening for a moment more, increasingly concerned. "Her mom's Judy Fabray, it should be in her phone book," she said to the phone, clearly upset. "Hold on, hold on, where are you taking her?" Pause. "Okay, we'll be there soon." Pause. "I know, but we're going to want to be there for her." Tears started to fall as she closed up her phone.

"What is it?" Finn asked.

Rachel sniffled back tears. "Quinn was in a car accident out on the edge of town," she managed to get out. "She's unconscious so they needed to know who to call for her. They couldn't tell me anything else but they're taking her to Lima Memorial Hospital."

Finn jumped from the truck and started waving at the others, yelling at them not to leave, then telling them the news about Quinn.


	15. Chapter 15

The group reassembled in the hospital emergency waiting room. Reception was completely unreceptive – without a member of Quinn's family they could get no answers. Will Schuester tried using his position as her teacher and got nowhere. Rachel tried her wedding dress with a "she's one of my bridesmaids" angle. Puck pulled out his phone to show the nurse a picture of him with Quinn and Beth: "No we're not married but she's the mother of my child, here, you have to tell me something." All nothing against the stonewall of medical confidentiality. Finally Brittany claimed that she was Quinn's sister, but since this attempt was rather late the nurse just rolled her eyes and went back into the ER.

Finn and Rachel sat in the corner, Rachel still in tears, Finn's arm around her to try to console her.

"I just can't help thinking that if only we hadn't gone ahead with trying to get married in such a hurry," Rachel said, not for the first time. "It was a stupid game against my dads. And now Quinn could die."

"You don't know any of that," Finn said, repeating himself too. "Anyway, we were going to get married today, if they hadn't turned out to object so much, weren't we?" He paused, wanting some agreement from Rachel, getting alarmed by her words. "I mean it wasn't a game to me, didn't you mean it too?"

"Yes," Rachel said quietly. She gripped his arm and turned to him. "Of course I meant it and I still do. Always." She buried her face into his shoulder. "I just wish..." she trailed off.

"I know. So do I. But blaming ourselves doesn't help Quinn. And our trying to get married didn't make whatever happened out on that back road happen."

"I know. Just – I was trying to hurry her up, and we were texting, and then she got careless or something."

"We don't know that either. We don't even know what she was doing on that road, it's outside of town and it's not really on the way from her place to the municipal center."

Rachel's crying stilled, and she looked up at Finn. "You're right. Thank you. I love you." She looked at his lapel and tried to straighten it. "I can't mess you up too much, this is a rental," she said.

Finn smiled a little. "Don't worry."

"How are you holding up?" she asked, touching his face. "I mean you did go out with her for quite a while, twice."

"She's a friend," Finn replied. "And yeah, I'm worried." He looked around at the waiting room, full of their friends, all still dressed for the wedding. "We all are." Santana and Brittany had been the closest to her for the longest, as her old Cheerio cronies; they sat at the far end, cuddled close together, Santana stroking Brittany's hair and trying to soothe her agitated crying. Mercedes and Sam were praying. And Puck – Puck sat upright, alone in a chair on the side, flicking through pictures on his phone, his face fixed, a tear starting to trail down the side of his face. _Shit, Puck's a mess. He never cries._

Finn settled Rachel back into her chair, then got up and went to talk to Mr. Schue, who stood close to the door.

"I just heard from Emma," Will told Finn quietly as he approached. "She says Mrs. Fabray is on her way."

Finn winced. "That's kind of like the last thing Rachel heard from Quinn."

"Apparently there was a stalled SUV blocking the main exit from their neighborhood, that's why Quinn was running late and out on the back road."

"Shit."

"How's Rachel?"

"She's been blaming herself but I think I've talked her out of it."

"How are you? I mean, way back when you probably saw yourself marrying Quinn someday."

Finn smiled ruefully. "Not really, well not like this," he said, gesturing at the suit he still wore. "We were never really good together. Just the sort of fill-in-the-blanks plans that fifteen-year-olds make when they don't know any better."

"Well you learned better pretty fast."

"Yeah, guess there's hope for me after all. Hopefully for Quinn too, she's just gotten everything together and set up for her future." _So unfair – but life wasn't fair, just very fragile._ Finn looked around at the rest of the group. First Karofsky's suicide attempt, now Quinn's life was in danger, everyone was in shock. But they supported and leaned on each other. While Mercedes and Quinn had been close, especially during Quinn's pregnancy, he knew she took great strength from prayer, and Sam was sincerely supporting her in that while getting comfort from it himself. Santana was tough and was taking care of Brittany, though he could see tears in Santana's eyes too and knew she'd need a break from being strong eventually. He looked again at Puck's grim face. "I'm going to go talk to Puck, he's a wreck," he told Will. "For Puck, anyway."

"Yeah, Puck and Quinn have always been closer than they were willing to admit," Will said. "Even to themselves. I'll keep an eye on the others and talk to Mrs. Fabray when she gets here."

"Look out for Santana. They've been friends for years and sometime she's going to need a break from being strong for Brittany." But even as he spoke he saw Rachel get up and quietly approach Santana, putting her arm loosely around the Latina to give her support. _That's my girl._ Tina had also noticed the situation and moved over to sit on Brittany's other side. There was still a chance Santana might lash out – hopefully she wouldn't blame Rachel, though she might – but for now they seemed to be hanging together.

Finn walked over and sat next to Puck. "Hey, dude," he said softly. He looked at the phone that his friend was fixated on, seeing the pictures of Quinn and Beth, some apart, some together, that Puck was switching between. His finger stilled as he stared at one picture of Quinn holding Beth, their faces looking so similar, with big smiles on both of them.

"I loved her, Finn," Puck said quietly, an admission that was clearly difficult for him to make. "I mean, back when, you know," he explained. "And I wanted her, and Beth, it hurt me so much to lie to you about it when I wanted them for myself." He met Finn's eyes, and Finn could see the tears and sincerity in them.

"I get it, dude, I really do," Finn said. "It's okay. With me, I mean." He'd long since let that grudge go.

"And part of me still loves her, I guess it always will, even though I know I've never been good enough for her. She's just..." Puck trailed off, trying to find the right words. "She's either incredibly together or a total mess, never anything in between, you know? So obsessed with being perfect. And now when everything was going great for her, I mean I didn't know if I'd ever see her again after graduation but I was happy for her anyway..."

_That's love_, Finn thought. _God, what if it was Rachel? I'd be worse, and since we're not married yet I'd be just as much in the dark. Maybe we should have gone ahead today anyway, no matter what our parents thought. At least we'd have each other._ He put his hand on Puck's shoulder, trying to offer him some comfort.

"And we'll always be connected, 'cause of Beth." Puck's face twisted. "Beth. God, what's this going to mean for Beth? Quinn still wanted to know her, and even with the latest thing with Shelby she was still going to be able to."

"There is no _this_, not yet, Puck," Finn told his friend, quietly but firmly. "We don't know anything yet, just that she was unconscious. I know the waiting is tough but we just – have to wait and see." Finn wasn't that good at waiting either, but he could tell how badly his friend needed his support. _I guess Rachel's right – this kind of thing is what I do._

"I guess."

"Her mom will be here soon and she can talk to the doctors." A noise from the door grabbed his attention, and to everyone's relief in came Judy Fabray, making straight for reception to find out what had happened to her daughter. Everyone watched her as she talked to the nurse, and they relaxed a little as she nodded and followed the nurse into the back. It didn't seem like she'd been told the worst that could have happened.

Still – Finn heard his mother's question repeat in his mind. _Would it be so bad to wait a bit longer?_ And now he had the answer, _yes it could be._ After all this, he needed Rachel in his arms tonight. And she'd need him there too.

* * *

><p>News eventually came out, in stages. Quinn would live, but her ribs and hips had been fractured in multiple places, and she would need extensive surgery if she was ever going to walk again. With all the waiting and worry they were almost too numb to cry. Almost.<p>

Finn drove himself and Rachel back to his place. She called her dads on the way, simply stating that she'd be staying over. They'd heard about the accident, and they didn't say much.

They were on the first few stairs up when they heard a "Hey" from the hall behind them: Burt Hummel.

"I'll be right up," Finn said softly to Rachel, then turned and stepped down to meet his stepfather as Rachel continued upstairs. "We're really tired, so we're going to sleep," he told Burt.

"Her dads know?"

"Yeah, they know." Hearing her son's voice, Carole came out of the kitchen and looked searchingly at Finn.

"You could ask," Burt said pointedly.

Finn looked Burt in the eye. "Would I get an honest answer?" Burt frowned. "Look, right now – I feel like I'm kind of done asking," Finn said quietly. He looked over at his mother, who gave him a supportive smile.

"Sleep well, Finn. I'll see the two of you in the morning," Carole said. "I love you."

Finn gave her a small smile and nodded. "Goodnight, Mom." He turned and walked up to his room.

In Finn's room, Rachel had already changed from her wedding dress into one of his gray McKinley shirts, and she was taking her hair down. Their eyes met in the mirror, and they smiled softly at each other, communing, not needing to speak.

Rachel washed as Finn changed, any interest in more elaborate ablutions disappearing in the face of how physically and emotionally tired they were. Finn, too, washed up quickly and returned to his room to join Rachel in bed. He wrapped himself around the center of his world, buried the side of his face in her silky hair, and slept.


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

It was Graduation Night for the seniors of McKinley High, and the young men and women of the Class of 2012 were lining up outside, adjusting their caps and gowns and readying themselves for the procession. In the middle of the long line stood Finn Hudson and Kurt Hummel, stepbrothers with conveniently consecutive last names.

"So where's that wife of yours anyway?" Kurt asked Finn, looking towards the front of the line. They clearly saw the start of the 'F's where Quinn sat in her wheelchair, and Mike a ways beyond her, but there was no sign of Rachel nearer the front in 'B' territory. "When she went out this afternoon she said she'd meet us here."

"I don't know," Finn said, twiddling his ring a little; he wasn't used to wearing it yet. "She should be here soon though. Her dads wanted to have dinner just with her, sort of a final goodbye to her old life with them I guess, but they went to that fancy Thai place so it might have taken longer." He exhaled. "Hopefully they didn't get any strange ideas about kidnapping her or something, LeRoy still talks sometimes about 'when she comes to her senses' apparently, even now."

"Well we'll all be in New York soon enough. If she hasn't shown up by then they'll probably have her locked up in the basement of the Gershwin Theatre, so you can go rescue her. I'll stand lookout, I've already met the security guard so there should be no problem."

Finn smiled at Kurt's flippancy. "At least you've come around."

"At least I was invited. Well, at least I got to be there, bundling me and your mom into cars and stealing our phones wasn't exactly an invitation," Kurt said. "It's still crazy on the surface of it. But you're both getting on with your education and you've worked out how to be together, so I suppose why not? And after what happened to Quinn, I can see why you wouldn't want to move to New York together without being officially next of kin." Kurt pouted. "In a way you owe me, if I hadn't told Dad and Carole you'd probably have stayed with a long and secret engagement."

Finn smirked. "Don't be so sure about that."

"About what?" Rachel came up behind them suddenly, putting one arm around each of Finn and Kurt.

"Hey babe," Finn said, giving her a light kiss. "How was dinner with your dads?"

"It was good," she answered. "We're working on how to have a more adult relationship. It's not easy, but I think it's going to work out eventually."

"That's great."

"Well now that we're married and moving to New York they don't really have much choice but to deal with it. So what were you two talking about?"

"Oh, Kurt was just saying that we'd still be only secretly engaged if he hadn't ratted us out," Finn stated. "I don't agree."

Rachel turned to Kurt with a smile. "Oh, if he wants to claim credit, I'm fine with that," she said. She turned back to Finn and put her other arm around him as well. "I'm too happy that we're finally married to care about how it happened." They exchanged a deeper kiss.

A cough from Kurt broke them apart. "It's almost time to start. You need to get to your place, Rachel," he said. At the front of the line, Coach Sylvester was getting her megaphone up to prepare to yell instructions to the graduates.

"I am in my place," Rachel replied, straightening her gown.

"What?" Finn was confused.

"I just checked with Coach Sylvester, and according to her amended list Principal Figgins decided to honor my name change after all," she explained. "Which puts me between my best guy and my best gay, exactly where I belong." She beamed widely at both of them. "New York's not going to know what hit it when we show up."

**END**

* * *

><p><em>AN: That's all folks! Much thanks to all of you who reviewed, discussed, favorited, alerted, and simply read. Your appreciation really kept me going and inspired me._

_Except that's not quite all. I'm also writing up the event Kurt alludes to above – it's much lighter in tone so it didn't fit in here. I hope to have it for you soon. I'll also get back to BCE now that this piece is done. _

_Until then, I remain, yours in Finchel, Henrietta Line._


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